A Valentine's Story
by Servant of SHEVAL
Summary: The story of the Jenova project in ShinRa mansion and Vincent and Lucrecia's past. In their unfolding love story, he slowly begins to realize his feelings for Lucrecia, but as fateful events occur, regresses back into the Vincent of FF7. Not DOC based.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Beginning Note Thingy: **Please, please, please, please, if you are reading this, review, and tell me if the first two or three chapters are horribly excruciatingly boring... I promise it gets better after that, but for the start, I just couldn't find my niche... I'll change them if they're not good, and leave them if they are, but I need feedback to do either of those things... so talk! And enjoy... hopefully.

xxx

A pink sun was sinking into the bronze horizon, a typical postcard-picture if taken with this quaint little town in the foreground. The black van had just pulled up onto the cobblestone street. A little commotion from the rural inhabitants later, and people and equipment were filing out of the car. A haughty looking man stood to one side, shouting orders, and flailing his arms to indicate the direction various odd scientific devices were supposed to go. He stopped a moment to straighten his glasses, and pass a hand over the slick black hair that had fallen out of his ponytail and into his face. The hand was quickly replaced into the pocket of his lab coat.

Standing quite apart from the normal, cannonfodder ShinRa employees who wore simple work clothing, and were grudgingly doing the bidding of this man in white, was a tall figure in a well-fitting navy suit. He stared at the winding path between the decrepit mansion he would be calling 'home' for the next several months, and the cliffsides of the mountain... the seldom-walked grassy alley went on and on before fading into the haze of the late-afternoon sunset.

He was silent, and inattentive to the hubbub that moving in created. The man carried himself with some kind of pride, which did not stray into the realm of arrogance that the scientist portrayed so well. The blue Turk uniform he wore flattered his thin, however elegantly muscled figure. Mahogany-brown eyes disappeared slowly behind thick black lashes, as he turned around to survey the last in the long line of men going back and forth with boxes and bags. He sighed... it was his turn to go in. Bending slowly to pick up his small amount of luggage, he made his way in, inconspicuously dodging around delicate instruments, and slipping between people.

The grand ShinRa mansion seemed strangely smaller on the inside than it did on the outside, where it had the benefit of it's threatening gothic architecture, and the sprawling shadow it cast over half the town. Nevertheless, most of the men who were with them were going home the next day, and would stay in the local inn the night, so he found his way to a small bedroom on the first floor, tucked in at the back of a library holding dusty couches and a moth-eaten rug, as well as floor-to-ceiling shelves of books. There were two beds, but it wasn't as if he'd be needing to share it with anyone... he doubted if anyone would even find it, or consider staying there with him if they did, as the majority of the accommodations were upstairs.

He sat down on one of the beds, testing the mattress... it wasn't bad. Not the squishy, comfortable ones they had back in his quarters at the Turk base back in Midgar, but not the hard, unforgiving beds like the poor ShinRa employees would be sleeping on at the inn tonight. He smirked at this thought, and slowly pulled up his bag beside him.

His fingers ran over the smooth black leather on the top... the edges were fraying, and the little plaque above the handle was slightly tarnished, but still read in shallowly engraved, curving letters: G. Valentine. It had been his father's. He sighed slowly... that was a long time ago. Undoing the buckles that held it closed, he inspected his meager belongings... all intact, not that there was anything particularly fragile in there.

Carefully, almost reverently, he pulled out his spare uniform, for when the one he was wearing was being washed. Beneath that, even more meticulously folded was his dress uniform. This he also took out, and made a mental note to find safe housing for, somewhere in this room. There was also a nice black suit, with a white shirt. It was dated, also his father's, but it would be beneath the jacket, so nobody would know, and a red silk tie. Some casual clothes followed beneath that, and once these were all out, he set about placing them in their proper drawers in the dresser next to his bed.

The Turk kicked off his shoes, and leaned back on the feather pillow, which, due to years of not being used, was deflated, and smelled of dust. He slowly reached into the bottom of the suitcase and took out his most treasured belongings. Two came in the form of thin black cases... the first he merely glanced at, without opening, and then put aside. The second he rested on his chest, and opened, gently taking out a gun...

It was yet another antique having belonged to his dad, but was excellently cared for, and showed no signs of age. There was an iridescent shimmer to the white handle, and a beautiful gleam to the metal, which reflected the last glow of the sun setting outside his window. The window looked West, and down that mysterious little path which had captivated his attention for so long earlier that day.

He examined the weapon with scrutinizing eyes, searching for the smallest speck of dirt that dared mar it's glimmering surface. Gentle fingertips traced over the name, carved into the short barrel of the pistol: Quicksilver.

Taking the case off his chest, he sat bolt upright, and spun the weapon around his finger, before stopping the twirl by deftly grabbing onto the stock the next time it past his opened hand. He narrowed his eyes slightly, staring down the shaft to where the revolver was aimed. He followed the unwavering line between it and it's target, invisible to the eyes of all but a trained gunman such as himself. Caught up in this, he had been oblivious to the soft padding across the room outside his own, and when the door opened quickly, there was a startled shriek from the offending intruder as they walked directly into the sight of his gun.

The man's eyes widened, and he swiftly put the weapon down, fumbling it back into its case. The door which had been swung wide open, narrowed to only a tiny crack, showing that the person behind it had only sought entrance, and had no reason to run from him, despite the fact that he'd been pointing a gun straight at them only a second earlier. As he looked up, an odd silence lapsed. Finally, whoever it was behind the door cleared their throat, and a meek, feminine voice asked, stuttering, probably still from the shock of walking into a room and promptly becoming the bullseye of a target, "U-u-uhm... may I... may I come in?"

Swallowing, the Turk inside leapt from the bed and stood up in straight attention, replying with an equally shell-shocked tone, "Ye-yes." Normally, his voice would've been stern, deep, and commanding... one did not progress from a mere trainee to the decent position of Lieutenant he held without some semblance of dignity and firm-attitude. But the quiet youth had been intruded upon during a moment of peace and deep thought, and had very nearly fired upon the person who had walked in, having had no idea that it was a girl.

Slowly, the door opened again, and in stepped a woman in a white labcoat that matched that of the haughty man outside. She smiled nervously, holding a large brown leather bag in both hands. "I apologize. I didn't mean to barge in on you like this..." she began, casting her eyes to the ground.

"No need." he replied with a nod of the head, having regained his composure since she entered.

She smiled a nervous smile, "...yes, but... all the rooms upstairs have been taken by the senior scientists, and I was told to... er, fend for myself." she gave a half-hearted chuckle, and let go of the bag with one hand to brush chestnut hair out of her face. As a result, the weight of her things was shifted to one arm, and she began to lean dangerously towards that side.

"Here, let me help you with that..." the Turk began, rushing over to take the handle she'd dropped before the woman fell over.

She laughed, "Thank you..." he helped her carry it over to the second bed, as she continued to explain, "So... this was the only room I could find, I guess that means I'll be staying with you. I hope you don't mind."

He shook his head, "N-not at all." the stammer was from the immediate realization that he would be sharing a room with a woman... how embarrassing.

She nodded slowly, and glanced for the first time in his direction, sweet blue eyes beneath the glass shield of delicate opticals. This gaze lasted only a moment between them, before she looked away, past him, and idly remarked, "I see you've already unpacked."

The man's breath had been caught in his throat when her eyes fell on his, and he was glad beyond anything when she turned away just at the moment when he felt his face get hot with what was undeniably the rush of red blood to his cheeks. "Yes..." he replied, unsure what else what else might be proper to say.

"I should get to doing that myself." she said rhetorically, and he nodded, taking this as his cue to leave, and go back to his own bed. Taking the extra detour to get to the other side, he sat with his back facing her, and let out a long sigh of relief... how long had it been since he'd been in the presence of a woman who wasn't just a random passerby on the street? Years. The ShinRa hierarchy was run entirely by men, and likewise no women were yet permitted into the elite training program that produced ShinRa's greatest fighting force, the Turks. Beyond this, he'd never in his life shared a room with a girl, let alone one who was so... he stole a glance over his shoulder, ...good looking.

He occupied himself with reaching for his gun, straightening it within its red-velvet lined case, then closing the box back up, and replacing it within his suitcase, and the same with the first black box. Closing the suitcase, he set it down on the ground, and pushed it with his foot under the bed.

"So what's your name?" came the girl's voice, the soft sound of bare feet on a wood floor, and the tiniest creak of the bed as she sat down on it. He turned around to look.

"I figured since we're going to be roommates for... who knows how long... we mind as well get to know eachother, at least a little bit." her smile was so innocent. He found no immediate response, an act that would've gotten him some sort of menial task back in the Turk training program, where a prompt answer, 'sir', would've been expected.

In this time, he hadn't noticed her eyes expertly examining him. She smiled again when his attention was drawn back from wherever it had wandered. "You're nervous?" he almost wanted to protest, but didn't have the will or the heart, "Fine, I'll go first." She leaned forward, a pink silk nightgown gleaming in the moonlight... it had gotten late... and he hadn't realized she'd changed from her lab clothes since she came in. She stretched out her arm towards him, in an attempt to bridge the gap between them with a handshake, "I'm Lucrecia. Lucrecia Crescent."

Moving without thinking, he extended his black-gloved hand to meet hers, and her thin fingers grasped it as he gave the long-awaited answer to her question: "Vincent Valentine."


	2. Chapter 2

Days had passed. Vincent awoke as early as he always did the next morning, to find that Lucrecia had woken earlier. He hadn't talked to her much since that first night, hadn't even seen her. She rose, probably, at the crack of dawn, so he never saw her in the morning. Only occasionally did she make an appearance at mealtimes, if they could be called that... the residents of the mansion would all gather together in one room and select what they could stand to eat from a vat of frozen, packaged foods, which they would then take turns heating up over the stove. They ate them straight out of the containers. Nobody felt like taking the time and the trouble to first find the where dishes were kept in this creaky old building, and then wash them once they'd been used. At nighttime, depending on how late Vincent returned to his room, he would either fall asleep before Lucrecia ever arrived, or enter to find her already in a deep slumber on her own bed.

He kept mostly to himself during the day, having never really had a clear briefing on this assignment. He wasn't exactly sure who he was supposed to be protecting, the scientists from the villagers, or the villagers from the scientists. He tried not to think too hard about this, having long since learned how to suppress a naturally curious mind when in situations where it was inappropriate to ask questions... and, personally, he'd much rather go along with the humorous plotline going on in his head that was taking on a more and more Frankenstien-like feel to it, than confront the more-than-a-little-crabby elder scientists about what they were doing. He just hoped that he wouldn't have to open fire on a mob of angry villagers bearing torches and pitchforks.

Not as if the scientists would tell him what they were doing anyway, even if he did get up the courage, or release the necessary amount of interest from behind the wall of indifference, to ask. Well... Lucrecia, maybe, but his difficulty in finding any time for just meaningless smalltalk meant that there would be no good moment to bring such up such a grave issue as that.

So with no orders, and no objective, the Turk youth had taken to the dusty library of the building, spending long, humid summer days turning page after page in a crumbly tome, hidden from the harsh light of the sun beneath the cool shade of stone walls. He had a growing pile of unfinished books he'd been taking to bed every night on his nightstand, the majority of which had since been completed, however neglected to be put away. It was on one such occasion, that the Turk, dressed in half-buttoned cotton pajamas, so fully absorbed in what he was reading, slightly boring though it may be, was surprised by the unusual occurrence of Lucrecia coming back early.

As with the first night, his trained senses had been off-guard due to his distraction, and he had not heard her coming towards the room, or even coming into it. "Your father was Grimoire Valentine?" she asked, causing him to jump only slightly, and put down the book, glancing around to look at her, confusedly. How had she known that?

"Sorry, I didn't mean to surprise you..." she said quickly, "I pulled your file the other day when I had some spare time during my lunchbreak... and before my dictator of a boss could catch me and make me do other stuff again." she gave a nervous laugh, obviously unused to insulting her superiors, even in jest, behind thier backs.

"Why would you do that?" he asked softly.

Lucrecia receeded back, as if she had taken the question more harshly than Vincent had meant it to be dealt, "Well... well I..." she swallowed, "Your name." she explained, "When you told it to me, Valentine struck a nerve, I remembered it from somewhere... and a lousy Midgar U graduate I would be if hadn't!" her timid enthusiasm had seemed to come back, unbruised by her earlier misconception of his comment, "He's only the most famous out-of-nowhere scientist to pretty much start the ShinRa science program singlehandedly." she grinned, "I owe my profession to him… never believed I'd be in the presence, and the safekeeping of his only son." she seemed impressed. Vincent did not.

He sighed, "So what if my father's famous? None of that transfers over to me... none of his merits, none of his skill... what did he do that was so great anyway?" he asked, "I hardly knew him." there was no bitterness in his tone, despite his words, just a sort of hollow sound, as if he regretted these facts, or that he'd never known so much about his father as this practically-a-stranger did.

Lucrecia shrugged, and obliged to tell him, "Well, unlike most scientists of his day which concentrated solely on the Lifestream, and it's workings, he preferred to study the creatures of this planet... he's brought in alot of great research that nobody cared to go out and get before."

Vincent listened intently... he literally had not known what his father did for a living, having never taken much interest in the man's work while he was alive... he only had a few vague memories of him.

Seeing that his attention had not wandered, Lucrecia continued, but not before sitting down on the bed next to him sliding over, her eyes were alight... she was really in her element here. "He found a race of highly intelligent, wolflike beings living in Cosmo Canyon..." she began, "He even studied, and provided DNA samples of four now-extinct species..." a smile of wonder was on her face, and Vincent found himself paying more attention to it than what she said, "The Galian Beast, Gigas, Hellmasker, and iCruentusHasta AbOcaSus/i, and since then alot of work has been put into discovering more about the Cetra that they were created from... that's even part of the project we're doing right now." At this, he perked up slightly, but not before she had begun to say, "But I can see you've lost interest..." the disappointment was obvious as she started to get up and return to her own bed.

"No!" he said suddenly, a little louder than he'd intended. His hand darted out against his own will, and he caught her wrist while it was still on the bed, and looked at her... now was the time... the time to ask, "What... what is the project you're working on now?" well, it was blunt, but it did the trick, "I'm afraid I wasn't told much about it, or given any orders concerning my position here."

"Ah..." Lucrecia began, the hesitance audible in her voice. Vincent winced slightly at this... by now the story had gone too far, and had touched a deeper part of his interests that, he knew from experience, could not be quelled when attempting to seek the source of their unrest.

She cleared her throat, "Well, the project concerns..." she began, then stopped once more, looking him in the eyes, her face now completely serious, "Promise me, Vincent... that you will not say a word about this to anyone... anyone, but me. Do you understand?"

Vincent nodded. He was used to taking orders and following them.

"Say you promise..." she urged.

"I promise."

"And I will hold you to your word... for your own safety, if nothing else."

This last statement concerned Vincent slightly, for as she said it, Lucrecia turned away, and looked down at the ground. "Lucrecia..." he murmured.

At her name, she looked back up again, smiling once more. "Right. I'll tell you... it's the Cetra that this project concerns. We call it the Jenova Project..."

"I have heard of its name." Vincent reported.

She nodded, "Well, I'd expect you knew that much. You may or may not also know that Jenova is, rather... was a Cetra. Her fossil was found right here, in the mountains just outside Nibelheim! Dr. Gast named her, but he's since... resigned his employment." she said it in such a way that Vincent was sure there was more to that, but he didn't press it, instead letting her continue to talk. "That's why I was called in as Hojo's assistant, even though I'm right out of school... and not even the most fit for this position. I sometimes wonder why I was selected, out of so many..." she stared wistfully out the window a moment, before her attention snapped back to him. "But I didn't mean to go off on a tangent like that..." she babbled.

"Think nothing of it." Vincent assured her, with the ghost of a smile forming on his pale lips. "I don't mind. But please, continue."

"Well, compiling the research done by your father with Dr. Gast's, we've determined that the creatures Dr. Valentine studied were the victims of a horrible virus that wracked the Cetra who arrived here on this planet..."

"Then those beasts... were the Cetra?" Vincent asked, surprise evident on his face.

She nodded slowly, "That's why it's so rare to find such a well preserved specimen like Jenova. She must've died before the virus fully affected her, but we've found remnants of it in her still... currently, we're working on purifying her body and genes of it, to discover what the Ancients were really like." she seemed quite excited. "But where we go from there... still a mystery."

"Fascinating." Vincent smiled, "Thank you, you've put to rest a great gnawing curiosity of mine."

"Glad to do so!" she said happily, standing. "And now, I'm afraid, I really must get my sleep. We're getting an early start tomorrow... as always." she rolled her eyes.

"I understand." Vincent answered, himself curling up on his bed. "And don't let that... Dr. Hojo," he had to search for the name a moment, "...be too hard on you. If he is, remember, it's my job as a Turk to watch over this facility, and guard it's inhabitants... that means guarding you from him, if it comes to that." a tiny smile played on his lips.

She giggled softly, slipping beneath the sheets on her bed, "All right, if he ever gives me any trouble, I'll come running to you, Vincent."

"Say you promise." he pressured.

"I promise." she smiled.

"And I will hold you to your word... for your own safety, if nothing else."

Lucrecia leaned over towards her nightstand, and the light went out, shrouding the two in darkness. In that oppressive shadow, which the moonlight didn't even lift, the cloudcover had only just rolled in on the nighttime breeze, Vincent closed his eyes and listened to her steadying breathing. There was something about her... something that commanded the words from his lips with as much force as his Turk superiors suppressed them, yet this shy, bookish girl had three times their beauty, and twice their grace, without even trying. He didn't know what he felt of her yet... at the least she was his... friend.

He turned over under his blanket. He'd think of it more another day... perhaps tomorrow. For now, he was content simply to have had this one real conversation with her, though he hadn't contributed much to it... it was still more than he would normally dare to say, and as minutes passed in the darkness, Lucrecia long having since slipped into the realm of sleep, he dared to say one more whispered word: "Goodnight."


	3. Chapter 3

It rained the next day. Not that it would have mattered to Vincent, he was always inside anyway. Chance had it that the scientists wouldn't even notice the weather, what with how occupied thier work was keeping them. In truth, it was quite the opposite.

The rain had started not long after Vincent had gone to sleep last night. And Hojo and Lucrecia, up at the crack of dawn as always, had come downstairs to discover that the area was half flooded. Vincent awoke quite suddenly to Lucrecia shaking his arm, and frantically yelling at him to: "Get up, Vincent, please get up!"

"What... what, Lucrecia, what is it? What's wrong?" he pulled himself up and out of bed, and took the hand that was holding onto his arm, he stared at her with worry in his eyes.

"The experiments!" she gasped, "The rain... water... it's... it's flooded half the basement! Oh, everything will be ruined..." she seemed at the point of tears, "All our work..."

"Now calm down." Vincent ordered, having gotten up and slipped on something a little more presentable than pajamas, "It will all be all right." he assured her, "Come, show me where it is."

Lucrecia took him by the hand, and hurriedly made her way through the mansion. The Turk had never been in the basement before, and didn't know what exactly to expect. When he got down there, he saw the same man who had been shouting orders the first day they arrived, this time looking desperate, his glasses askew, his hair a mess, as he hastilly tried to get electrical devices up off the ground, out of the water, and move precious books on the lower shelves to dry surfaces.

The girl then left Vincent's side to assist him in picking up something heavy. "What is he doing here!" the Turk thought he heard Hojo hiss furiously, nodding his head in his direction.

"He's here to help us." Lucrecia whispered back meekly without even looking at him.

Vincent promptly stepped into the ankle-high water, and began salvaging anything that seemed to require it. When this was done, Lucrecia and Hojo started making long, and tiring trips up and down the stairs, hauling buckets of water along with them, and dumping them, he guessed, outside. When next Hojo was downstairs, he roughly shoved another bucket at the Turk, and gruffly ordered him to, "Stop standing there, and do something useful for a change, get to cleaning up this mess." he frowned slightly at this, but obeyed.

Time passed surprisingly quickly for the three while doing this exhausting task. Soon, there was not enough water left on the ground to be efficiently gotten rid of with buckets anymore, and they set about finding every scrap of fabric, clothes, towels, curtains, carpets, that could be spared to soak up the water. Vincent had run to his room to gather up his things, leaving behind only his dressy attire. He tore all the blankets and sheets off his bed, and dragged them downstairs to aid the effort of cleaning up the flooded lab.

Exhausted, Hojo had given his assistant the day off, and gone back to his room to sleep. This left Vincent and Lucrecia to thier own devices. After having undergone the toils they'd been faced with earlier in the day, the two were perfectly satisfied in reclining in thier room, drying themselves by a fire the Turk had started in the hearth.

Lucrecia lay on her side before the flames, a relieved smile on her face. "I'm just so glad nothing was damaged today..." she kept saying, to which Vincent only responded with a slight nod.

"Thank you so much for helping." she said, sitting up, and watching him.

He shook his head, "No, it was nothing. My job..." he smirked, "...and your promise. Just last night, you didn't forget already?"

She smiled warmly, "Right. No, I didn't forget. But still... thank you."

Vincent merely looked away.

"You know..." she mused after a short lapse of silence, "We've been living here, in this very same mansion, and this very same room for... a whole month, and I've hardly gotten to know you past your name..." she looked at him pointedly.

"From our second encounter, it seemed you knew more about me than I did." Vincent turned to her, a wry smile on his face, "...at least about my father."

"Well..." she dragged out the syllable, "...I'm paid to."

To this, Vincent gave a slight chuckle, and her solemn face lit up in response.

"I mean... he's a prodigy. Nobody would have expected some... er, excuse my phrasing, but... some nobody from Wutai to come out and astound the world the way he did."

"Wutai, eh...?" Vincent breathed.

"You didn't know...?" she tilted her head to one side, her wavy wet hair falling about her face... she'd taken it down out of the ponytail it was always in to let it dry faster.

"No. I was raised in Midgar..." Vincent affirmed, "...I think I have... some vague memories of the place..." his features squenched together slightly as if he were trying to remember, "...but nothing concrete. I'm sorry, I'm really not... all that interesting."

She gave a practically mocking 'Ha-ha!' and sat up straight, "You think too little of yourself, Vincent. You really are a mystery, even if /you/ think there's nothing to you, I see that there is. You've got another side to you, beneath that Turk uniform you look so good in."

His olive-skinned face tinted a shade of pink then, and he looked away, hiding behind his long raven bangs, while Lucrecia likewise turned away, squeezing her lips together so that she didn't accidentally embarrass the poor boy further.

Vincent shivered slightly... the water hadn't been deep, but at the end of several hours, they'd all managed to get themselves soaked head to toe, and despite the fire, the house was old and drafty.

"If you're cold, you should get a blanket." Lucrecia advised.

Vincent shook his head, "Mine are all downstairs in the water, and yours are all around you." he shrugged, then turned and began to reach under his bed for his suitcase. Lucrecia watched him with a look of intrigue, as he pulled it out, and opened it, setting aside the two black boxes yet again.

He swiftly drew out a vivid crimson garment, and swept it about his shoulders... the cloak was old, Lucrecia observed, as the Turk began to belt it closed around his shoulders, showing obvious signs of wear, tatters and patches, parts that had been stitched and restitched, and edges that had begun to fray, but they way he handled it... there was definately some sentimental value there.

"You look good in red." She remarked idly, after he had finished putting it on, "Almost as good as you look in blue."

Vincent merely sunk lower into the high collar of the cloak, allowing it to further obscure his face.

Another awkward silence followed, begun after a defeated sigh from Lucrecia. But it was broken, this time, by Vincent. "You mentioned the other night... the Galian Beast my father studied."

Lucrecia turned to him and nodded, "Yes, a very interesting one... quite recently extinct, unlike the others..."

"Did you also know it was my father who killed the last one?" he asked.

The girl looked shocked, "No... I didn't!" she admitted, "But then... how would you?" it was a joke. Vincent rolled his eyes slightly.

"He was always boasting about it... one of the few things I remember of him." the Turk had shifted away from her, reaching for one of the sleek ebony boxes that lay before him on the ground. Opening it up, he revealed the Quicksilver again. Lucrecia flinched more than a little this second time that she saw it.

"He killed it with this very gun..." Vincent murmured, taking it out, and gently placing it on the floor in front of him. "...finished it off in one shot."

Lucrecia wasn't quite sure whether to be impressed or horrified, but looked in a state of awe nonetheless, "Why would he do that?" she asked.

"It attacked me." Vincent stated plainly, a response which elicited a gasp from his companion. The Turk ignored this for the most part, sliding a finger inside the shaped depression of the red velvet, he opened a small, hidden compartment inside which gleamed three small silver bullets in a space that was meant for four. "Silver. It's poisonous to Galian. He knew that... that's why he named it what he did: Quicksilver." Vincent explained, looking absently off towards a wall now, "I still have the scar." he finished, closing the tiny hatch before dropping the gun back in, and sealing the box up.

"We have samples of Galian here." Lucrecia said after a moment. "And the other three, too. We're comparing Jenova cells to them in order to confirm that we've fully eradicated the virus."

"How's that coming?" Vincent asked, for lack of a better wording.

"Well. We've made progress, but we aren't finished yet."

He nodded, a common gesture for Vincent Valentine. Followed by the common silence between the two it so often created. It was now Lucrecia's turn to end it, with a slight gasp. Vincent turned to her, "What?"

The girl had gotten to her feet and rushed over to the window behind his bed, the blanket she wore trailing behind her as she peered between the curtains. "The sun came out!" she exclaimed.

He slowly stood, "So... what does that mean?"

"So..." she started, "That means we can go out and enjoy it while Hojo's still snoozing in his room." she dropped the blanket around her ankles, revealing the simple tank top and shorts she had on, and reached for his hand, "Come on!"

Vincent was pulled abruptly to his feet by this. He too was clad only in a white T-shirt, and short pants. "But... but we're..." he looked down at himself... both his simple uniforms were sopping wet down in the basement, and he wouldn't dare wear the fancy one to... whatever she had planned.

"Oh, who will care?" there was a mischeivous sparkle in her eye as she began to pull him along, out of the room. The Turk had no clue where he was going, or what had gotten into her... she was cheery compared to most people he'd ever known, but that was nothing compared to now. It was as if some fiery spirit had possessed her, so that she had not only the strength to pull the trained fighter so that he was stumbling along behind, but also to defy her superior, who would no doubt wake up later and be expecting to continue the cleanup.

In the few times he'd actually seen or talked to her, he could already tell that this was far beyond the amount of enjoyment she usually allowed herself. It was more than any small, lingering smile he'd ever seen her wear, and he didn't know what had evoked this response from her, but we was beginning to like it more and more.

Perhaps it was this about her that so captivated him... a kindred spirit. A fountain of energy and youth buried beneath the sombre guise of 'just another ShinRa employee'. Nevertheless, he was soon running right along beside her, his bloodred cloak trailing behind, as they bounded down the front steps of the mansion, and into that winding path behind it which he had so long meant to explore, yet never had gotten around to. He was looking forward to the rest of today.


	4. Chapter 4

The high mid-afternoon sun that had watched their journey as they first set out was now dipping below the mountaintops... That winding path had soon disinterested the two travelers, and so they turned off into the mountains soon after the last sight of Nibelheim disappeared behind them.

Climbing barefoot was quite the trick, but they did their best to find paths that were smooth and easy. Lucrecia was seemingly having the time of her life... the girl was positively giddy, and the excitement was wearing off on Vincent, so that he was laughing at every minor slip and fall they took together just as much as she was.

Just as the sun was setting, they overcame a huge mountaintop, and Lucrecia drew in a gasp at the hidden oasis below... inside a huge grassy valley, nestled between the mountains, was a beautifully clear round lake, fed by a waterfall on one side, white water rushing fast and strong, newly refueled by the rain earlier that day.

"Look at that!" she breathed, "I didn't even know it was here."

"I doubt anyone did." Vincent murmured beside her.

"Oh, no, someone has..." she pointed, and Vincent followed that invisible line from her finger, to a small stone dock, mossy and overgrown, nearly obscured, by the side of the lake. "You don't suppose we're trespassing on private property, do you?"

"Doubtful." Vincent reported, scanning the little dock, "It seems like no-ones used it for years, but even if they have..." he turned to her with a smile, "Do you think they'll care if we just stop by for a visit?"

She smiled back, "Come on, let's go closer."

So the two descended the sloping mountain path, into the lush green beneath. Lucrecia ran over to the dockside, sitting down and dipping her muddy feet into the water. She laughed as she kicked and splashed, sending shimmering droplets everywhere, making little ripples that floated across the surface.

Vincent thought that sound was the sweetest thing to reach his ears... the pure undiluted sound of her happiness echoing off the steely mountains, and mingling with the percussion of the clear waterfall. He smiled, walking closer until he was right beside her, his cloak and hair playing in the breeze which carried that healing laughter.

"It's so nice here." Lucrecia mused, "I hope I find time to come back..."

"We will." Vincent assured her, glancing down to meet her gaze as she looked up. The two allowed themselves to be enclosed in their silence, and simply take in the beauty of the scene before them. Long minutes went striding by as the sun set red behind the grey mountaintops, and the pool turned to blood in the light.

Suddenly, Lucrecia gasped, "Oh no...!" she breathed, scrambling to her feet, "It's almost dark, and tonight's the new moon, we won't be able to see our way back..." she looked desperately towards the darkening sky, and the shadowy mountain path back to Nibelheim. "We have to go... start going back right now."

"No," said Vincent, catching her as she tried to rush past him, "We'll never make it back before nightfall, it's only minutes away... and I wouldn't dare try climbing back over the mountains in the dark, with as much trouble as we had doing it in the light."

Lucrecia made a noise in her throat, and looked up at Vincent, "So... what'll we do? We're just stranded here..."

"We'll have to weather out the night..." he said with a shrug, "There's nothing else to be done."

"But... Hojo..." the girl looked to the path again, worriedly, "He'll have my head if he wakes up, and I'm not there in the morning... and he'll throw a fit if I just tell him what happened."

"Not like there's anything he can do about it after the fact, though." Vincent mumbled. As they talked, the night was deepening... even the determined scientist would soon be convinced that it was too much trouble to head back now than to deal with the wrath of her boss later.

She gave a quiet sigh, "All right..." she gave in, sinking back to the soft grass. "But it's so cold..." she shivered in the wind, "I didn't exactly come dressed for a late-summer camping trip."

"Come on." Vincent offered his hand to help her up, "...I know where we can go to get out of the wind."

He led her over to the waterfall, Lucrecia was silently curious. Vincent surveyed the white sheet of water, before slowly holding his hand out to it, and passing it through to the other side. At this, he smiled. "There's a cave in there." he turned to look at her, "Let's go in."

The Turk slipped in a small space between the flow, and the rock, making a slight jump from the grassy shore to the slick cave floor. He turned around there, reaching out for Lucrecia. "It's all right." he urged, "You won't fall, I'll catch you."

Lucrecia glanced hesitantly between the water, and Vincent... she didn't want to get wet, but... bracing herself against the cave wall, she took a step, sliding easily past the water, with Vincent's aid. He put an arm around her shoulders as she came in, and the girl looked up at him again, and smiled.

This was swiftly returned, before a thought struck the Turk... it was nighttime, no moon, and they were inside a cave... how was it that he could see...? He slowly drew away from her, and turned around, and had his breath taken away for the second time, since he first met the girl he was now with.

"Lucrecia... turn around." he whispered.

"What?" she did as she was told, and then gasped, "It's beautiful..."

Before them were the smooth, sculpted walls of the cave, in a perfectly circular dome. The floor was likewise flat, and without cracks or crevices. Lining the base of the walls were huge glowing crystal spikes, ranging from a foot high, to ceiling height. They gave off an eerie white-blue light, and collected at the very back of the cave in an almost alter-like structure.

"What are they...?" Lucrecia breathed, eyes alight, and reflecting the glow.

"Mako crystals." Vincent said, upon surveying them a little more closely, "Materia."

"But they're huge! I didn't think materia could get so big!" Lucrecia walked away a little bit, and cautiously reached out her hand to touch one. The glow increased marginally as her fingertips brushed the glassy surface, and a noise like a tiny, unending chime sounded, until she drew her hand away.

"Come on." Vincent said, walking to the opposite wall, where the crystals were less concentrated. "It's getting late, if we wake up early enough, Hojo may not even notice how long you were gone."

"All right." Lucrecia turned away from the intriguing rock formations, and strode across the chamber towards the Turk. "But I'm still cold..." she said under her breath, while sitting down on the floor, "With or without wind..."

There was a sound of fluttering fabric, and when Lucrecia looked up again, she was staring into the eyes of Vincent, as he fastened closed the red cloak around her shoulders. Her face turned about the same color that it was after that. "N-no... I don't need you to..." she began, but was silenced as he put a finger to her lips.

He was catching onto this... it had taken him this long, but Vincent had caught on. She couldn't be the one pursuing him forever. She'd have been all alone if she ran out here herself, and he didn't follow, if he hadn't run right alongside her the whole time... but she'd still been leading the way. As her eyelids drooped while she leaned back on the wall, Vincent watched, his own body beginning to feel the wear that this long and hard day had put on it. He resolved not just to rely on her for prompts, in conversation, in action, in anything. From now on, what they did, they did together.


	5. Chapter 5

Lucrecia awoke, cocooned within the soft red fabric of Vincent's cloak. She smiled, closing her eyes, and snuggling up inside it. She allowed herself this comfortable indulgence for a few minutes, before getting up again, off the makeshift pile of rumpled fabric that had been made for her as a pillow.

She stood, and stretched. The cloak was too large for her, the shoulders quite broad, and the bottom dragging along behind her. "Vincent?" she called softly, her voice resonating within the solid rock walls.

A moment later, wet black bangs appeared around the corner of the cave that led out, along with smiling brown eyes. "You're awake."

Lucrecia walked over to him and nodded, stepping out of the cave, as he got out of her way to let her do so. She squinted in the morning light... this little hideaway was even more beautiful by day than it was at sunset, or in the dark. The two stood side by side for a moment, Lucrecia merely surveying her surroundings, Vincent waiting for her to do something.

"We should go..." she finally murmured.

Vincent offered a silent nod, and held his hand out for her again. She stared at it a moment, then casually slipped the cloak off, and draped it over his outstretched arm.

He seemed confused for a moment, gave up. With a sigh, he drew his arm back in and fastened the garment shut about himself again. In the early light, they set off home.

The lawn in front of ShinRa mansion was strewn with the clothing pieces that had been used to soak up the water from the basement. They'd obviously been set out to dry yesterday, as none of them were wet anymore. The two gathered up anything belonging to them, and carried them in, slipping inside without being noticed. They set about putting things in their proper places, and changed into the usual attire. For Lucrecia, a shirt, skirt, and lab coat, stockings, and decent shoes, comfortable for standing for hours on end... Vincent, as usual, was garbed in the Turk uniform: white button-up undershirt, black tie, blue jacket and matching pants, and Quicksilver in it's usual place, hanging easily in the gun holster at his side.

Vincent kindly escorted Lucrecia out of their room, and towards the basement... he intended on keeping up with his resolution to stay by her side... both figuratively and literally.

As the stone door leading to the hidden spiral staircase was slid open, Lucrecia turned toward the gunman with regretful eyes, "You'd better not..." she said under her breath to him, "Hojo... he'll be furious enough with me, he doesn't need to get angry with you..."

"Why would he?" asked Vincent rather boldly, "I didn't do anything."

Lucrecia's face twisted slightly, "But I wouldn't put it past him to-"

"Shh," Vincent silenced her, "I'll be all right."

She sighed, and turned from him, making her way down the rickety stairs without another word. They reached bottom, and continued down the dank tunnel towards the laboratory and study at the very end. Nearly there, Lucrecia stopped, and turned around.

"I really don't think you should... this area has to be confidential, I can't bring you in with me."

Oh. Right. He'd forgotten that. "All right." Vincent gave in. "Then... there must be somewhere out here I can wait."

"But I'll be all day!" she said, astounded at the notion that Vincent would bother to wait hours and hours for her to return, "There must be something better you can do."

"Not really." he said in total honesty, which made her give a slight smirk.

"Well... I couldn't possibly ask you to... but if you insist..." she trailed off.

"I do."

Lucrecia gave a breathy, nervous laugh, before turning and heading dreadfully towards the laboratory door, giving a halfhearted wave over her shoulder as she went to face, what was certainly, her doom.

The door opened, and she went in. All Vincent heard was a rather startled, and indeed quite angry, "There you are!" from the voice he recognized as being Hojo's, followed by something half-muffled because the door had now closed, that was something along the lines of: "Wasting valuable time... get to work... no break today."

Vincent's eyes narrowed at the closed door, and his lips curled into an angry sneer. How dare he talk to her like that... he wasn't that much her senior... Hojo couldn't be much older than he was, and he was only a few years beyond Lucrecia, at most. And even if Hojo was older than he looked, he had no right to treat her like that, it wasn't her fault...

...well, maybe it was. But he didn't know that yet anyway. Vincent heaved a frustrated sigh, and went back upstairs, intending on getting a few large books to read, while waiting on the ground outside the door. Minutes later, he was back down there doing just that. He received a few strange looks from various scientists whom Lucrecia hadn't mentioned by name, as they went in and out, but merely reported to them in a perfectly straight tone that he was 'just doing his job, as he was assigned to protect this area, and was,' as far as he was concerned, 'required to guard this post'. This worked for most of them... and he managed to pass the time without Hojo becoming aware of his presence. Once or twice, Lucrecia spotted him through the crack between the door and its frame, as another scientist entered or left, and it was those small glances that allowed him to continue to sit there without growing impatient.

Whatever they were working on in there, they were doing it quite diligently. It wasn't often Lucrecia stole a glance over her shoulder, he assumed, only when the door opened did she bother... but always then, she had that same little smile... half mocking him for being so devoted, half glad that she was the reason he was staying here, and half sad that she couldn't go to join him.

Several days passed like this. Lucrecia was always dismissed before Hojo actually left, so the two would walk back to their room together, no matter how late, with her often helping him with his books. That was one thing the Turk had to give to the male scientist... as little as he liked him, he wasn't a slacker.

But despite these fleeting glimpses she'd been giving him, Lucrecia had for the most part shut herself right up... she didn't talk as often, and when she did, it was with a careful hesitance, as if she were afraid to get hit for something she was about to say... it was this attitude that made Vincent wonder if, behind the closed door of the laboratory, this was the usual consequence for talking. This suspicion didn't make him any friendlier toward her boss.

It was on the fifth day, that Hojo poked his greasy little head out the door when one of the scientists, Kedris was his name, one Vincent had actually gotten somewhat friendly with in the brief smalltalk conversations they'd had while he was on his way in or out the door.

"What are you doing here, Turk?" he growled, eyeing Vincent accusingly. Kedris obliged to slip silently past Hojo, disappearing back into the lab.

"I am guarding my post." Vincent said matter-of-factly. "I'm paid to do this."

"Not right outside of the lab, you're not!" Hojo spat, "There's confidential research and discovery going on in here, such information as you would never be entitled to."

Vincent's eyes narrowed again, "What do you want me to do about it?" he said quietly, and evenly.

Hojo's eyes looked livid, "Get out!" he ordered, pointing wildly down the corridor.

Vincent did not respond for a moment, he glared at the scientist through squinted eyes beneath a furrowed brow... his lips were pursed together tightly, and his grip on the book in his hand tightened... slowly, he began to stand, and ended up towering over the scientist.

The scientist didn't even bat an eye at this, the only thing that changed was that he was now staring sternly _up_ at Vincent.

"Hojo..." came Lucrecia's soft voice from somewhere inside the room, where the Turk couldn't see her...

"What!" he barked, his head disappearing inside the door as he looked at Lucrecia, "What do you want, girl?"

There was a silence, Vincent assumed, because of Lucrecia's response at this harsh reaction. Finally, she answered, "Is that really necessary? He's not doing any harm just sitting there..."

"He's distracting my workers." Hojo said pridefully, "And it's not his job to sit and read outside the door like he's eavesdropping for secrets..." he huffed, then took a moment, apparently to get the level of his voice under control again, "I just don't _trust_ these ShinRa employees, Lucrecia..." he said. She was silent, "You're never quite sure who the Turks are sent to spy on, us, or everyone else... I'd rather not take the chance that it's us." he looked hatefully back out at Vincent for a moment, who simply stood there, nonplussed, before turning his attentions back in, "If we find some breakthrough, I don't need ShinRa getting their greedy little hands on it, and taking it away from us... and ruining any potential for further research we might be able to do."

Vincent chanced a peek inside, past Hojo. He saw Lucrecia standing there, shying away from the man, as he reached out to her, and brushed a brown lock of hair from her face. He clenched his teeth behind his lips, but gave no outside hint of his disgust at this gesture, save a slight twitch of the eye. Lucrecia didn't look at him.

Hojo slowly turned around again, "Now... go." he said, more calmly, however with just as much strictness and authority as he'd had before.

"Very well." The response was hissed in the back of his throat, and he doubted whether it was audible at all, as he stooped to pick up his books, gathered them in his arms, then turned and started off down the hall. The door clicked shut behind him before he could turn to see Lucrecia.

She was asleep on a damp pillow when he returned to bed that night.


	6. Chapter 6

Lucrecia apologized for Hojo's actions the next morning, while she was pulling her hair back in front of the mirror. Vincent kept assuring her that it was all right, he was used to taking orders from people he didn't like. Lucrecia cracked a halfhearted smile at that, but said no more before descending the stairs. He did not follow her that day.

Eventually, things had settled back into the all-too-familiar pattern of the first few weeks in the mansion, of Lucrecia leaving at dawn, and returning after dark. Vincent rarely caught her, even in the in-betweens, and even then, she was reluctant to talk to him. This behavior which he had met with honest indifference the first time it happened, now elicited an excruciating need to see her again, to hear her voice...

The Turk couldn't make odds or evens of this yearning he felt. It was really quite strange. The more time he had to think about it, the more he trailed off the track of why he wanted to be with her, and focused on the fact of how much he did, and thinking about that only made the wanting worse.

Frustrated, Vincent extricated himself from a sagging armchair late one day, and left the library in a hurry to return to his room. Once again, he did that seldom-performed act of getting out his suitcase, and opening it up. This time he reached, not for the red cloak, not for his gun case; the gun was already at his hip, but for the second black case, that had since not been opened. It was long, and thin, and he lifted it carefully by the handle, carrying it with the utmost caution out of his room.

He then set about finding an appropriate place to settle himself back down in the house. He didn't really want to remain in his room, the library was becoming so familiar, it was beginning to get on his nerves... any of the other bedrooms, already claimed by other members of the staff, were out of the question. He then moved to the conservatory upstairs, but upon opening the door, two startled scientists turned around to face him from where they'd been examining something beneath a microscope. He apologized for disturbing them, and quickly left.

Darting across the hallway to the other side of the upper level, he found what appeared to be a music room... a dusty piano stood in one corner, and a long-since-used cello in the opposite. However, he took one look around, and was immediately dissatisfied... the acoustics would be horrible.

With a defeated sigh, Vincent began his descent back down to the first floor, thinking about how he'd love to use that little round cave in the mountains that he and Lucrecia had gone to... but it was already too dark to venture out there, even if the darkness didn't apply to the mako-lit interior of the cave... but now he was thinking Lucrecia again. He sighed, unwilling to head down a bad path... but then a thought came to him.

He paused at the bottom of the stairs. His room was to the right... his idea was to the left... there was one place, yet, that he could try... one place that, like the winding path he and the scientist had taken not so long ago, he'd been meaning to look into on his own for a while now. Perhaps it would lead to as favorable a result as the first had.

Making up his mind, he turned for the secret stairs. The stone door slid easilly open, and Vincent silently descended into the shadow. He meandered down the torchlit hall below, but stopped a little more than halfway to the laboratory door at the end. There it was... the second door. In all his time sitting and waiting for Lucrecia, back when he was allowed to do that, he hadn't seen anyone go in there, so he probably wouldn't be barging in on anyone if he tried to use it.

The Turk approached the tall oaken frame, put a hand on the knob, and tried to turn it... it simply rattled. "Locked." he mumbled, "Damn." he stepped back, glanced up and down the hall to make sure nobody was approaching, then slipped a hand into his pocket, and pulled out a paperclip. He bent it with his teeth, and inserted the now elongated tip into the keyhole... he doubted it would work, the lock on the door was old, rusty, and quite heavy. As he expected, nothing came out of it but a broken paperclip. He pulled the end out of the keyhole, and glared at the door, now at a loss for what to do.

Suddenly, the door down the hall opened. Vincent flinched, and nearly ducked to hide behind the corner, stopping only because he realized he would look quite stupid and obvious to whomever was coming out, as they had surely already noticed him.

Whoever it was had their back turned as they closed the door, and only after that turned to face him.

"Hey, Mr. Valentine!" said the familiar voice.

"Kedris..." Vincent began, hoping Hojo wasn't hearing through the door.

"Long time no see." he mentioned as he hurried over, "What'cha been up to?"

Vincent shrugged.

"Well, anyway, check this out..." the man said eagerly, walking forward. He held something carefully in both hands, and risked removing one to push up his glasses on his nose. At that moment, Vincent idly wondered why all the scientists wore glasses, but soon his attention was drawn right back as the black cover was drawn off the scientist's creation.

Resting on the man's hand was an elegant golden arm replica... well, replica would've been going to far. It didn't look human, it was constructed more like a claw, made out of, or at least painted to look like, shining polished brass. To be honest, it quite impressed him, but he couldn't help but ask the nagging question:

"What's it used for?"

"Well!" Kedris began eagerly, "Since we're working with some volatile solutions, and pathogens that provide us with a very real risk of contamination, so I engineered this robotic arm, on Hojo's order, of course, to be remote controlled by the user. It will handle the solutions instead of us... it drastically decreases our risk of, erm... injury."

Vincent nodded, managing a reassuring smile, "Look's great."

"So what're you doing down here again?" the man asked.

"Oh..." Vincent started... what was his excuse? He glanced at the door, and sighed, no harm in telling the truth, at least not with this one, he figured, "I was wondering... what's behind that door?" he pointed.

"Hm?" the man turned to look, inspected it a moment, then aligned his gaze back on the Turk, "I don't know... but I think there's a key for it somewhere, if you want to go in and check." he grinned, "This mansion has so many weird little places like that."

"Huh."

"Oh, actually..." Kedris started, "I seem to remember someone telling us this... the key's up in a safe upstairs, if it really interests you that much. There's a combination... I think it's posted up in the room there. Pretty pointless having a safe that's got the code to open it written right on it, if you ask me..."

"Thank you." Vincent cut in, not too excited about listening to him talk anymore when the option of actually being able to go into this secret room had been newly revived.

The safe was in a room Vincent had neglected to explore earlier, and indeed there was a little piece of paper taped to the front of it which read plainly that the combination was: RIGHT 36, LEFT 10, RIGHT 59, RIGHT 97. There was a miniscule click, and the huge door swung slowly open. Inside the large safe, lay one tiny little key, placed on the ground at the very center... it seemed almost anticlimactic.

Moments later, the Turk was eagerly turning the rusty little key in the rusty little lock of the door. With scrape of metal on metal, it opened, and a little bit of brute force later, the door gave way, and swung to reveal the room inside. Vincent stopped then, looking in in surprise. He hadn't know what to expect, but it certainly wasn't this...

A dungeon-like chamber greeted him, with chains on the walls, cobwebs, everything... there were even coffins lining the walls, and one on an elevated platform in the very center. It looked like a scene out of a low-budget horror movie. Nevertheless... he turned his gaze up to the ceiling. It was arched, similarly to a chapel's... the walls were a solid stone. It looked good to him, and as far as the morbid decorations were concerned, well… he'd seen worse.

Closing the door behind him, and locking it once more, from the inside, the Turk walked over to examine the main coffin. It had no name on it, he even brushed away the layers of dust to check, and after sneezing a few times, simply contented himself with sitting down on the small platform in front of it. He leaned back on the side of the coffin, the black case he'd had with him all this time placed on his lap, he opened it.

Three tubular pieces of gleaming silver, standing out against the black velvet cushioning inside, were as well cared-for and cleaned as Quicksilver. With the ease of an expert, he put them together to form one long silver rod, and this, he lifted to his mouth.

His eyes closed, and his lips curled into the tiny pucker of a smile as he lifted the mouthpiece of the instrument up to them. With unnatural speed, his fingers flew about the keys, and with careful breath, a haunting melody rose within the room, reverberating between the cold stone walls.

As easily, perhaps more easily than books could, he became lost in his music. Hours could have passed, and he wouldn't notice... but the day was late as it was, and before too long (several quavering songs later), there was a gentle rapping at the door, and a voice calling him, "Vincent..."

He looked up, and lowered the instrument from his lips, holding it delicately in his left hand, as he stood to approach the door. Turning the deadbolt, he closed a fist around the huge handle, and leaned his weight back on it. Slowly, the oaken gate creaked open, revealing Lucrecia standing outside. He merely blinked, having not expected to see her.

"So that was you, then." she said, voice quiet, eyes alight with wonder.

"Playing...?" Vincent queried.

"Yes, playing... I didn't know you knew the flute..." she indicated the beautiful specimen of silver he held, "We were beginning to think that we had a ghost musician on our hands..."

"You could hear me down in the lab?" Vincent's face was slowly reddening... he meant this to be much more of a private thing...

"Oh, yes. You never know what this mansion might throw at you, it wouldn't surprise me to be haunted. But it was driving Hojo crazy." she smirked. "He finally just up and left." she added in a quieter tone, eyes downcast.

Vincent swallowed, "I'm sorry..."

"No, no it's not you." she quickly responded, "We're just... really close to a breakthrough, and tensions are high."

"A breakthrough?" echoed the Turk as he turned to pick up the black flute case. He began to disassemble the instrument.

"Yes!" said Lucrecia, a mere hint of her usual excitement about her work evident as she spoke, "We've almost completely isolated the virus, and are preparing to extract it... after that, we'll be able to study it further, and then decide what we're going to do with the purified Jenova cells."

Clipping the case closed, Vincent walked back over to her. There was a silence before he cocked his head to one side slightly, and asked, "Is Hojo out there, or am I allowed to escort you to your room tonight?" he said in a soft, however undeniably bitter tone.

Lucrecia's head fell a little, "About that..." she began, turning towards the door, "No, he's gone already, you can come, but..." she swung the door open, holding it for Vincent as he slipped out, "I'm-"

"Sorry?" he asked, "Yes, I'm sure. And it's not your fault you have an insane, overprotective boss." he stared off towards the distant stairs as he said this.

Lucrecia merely gave a nervous laugh, as the two began to walk along together. Vincent was silent, still with that absent look on his face, even as they neared the stairs up.

"What are you thinking about?" the girl asked, leaning forward to try and make herself seen by him.

"Oh..." Vincent, looked away, apparently trying to find the railing as he mounted the stairs... he bit his lip, "Are there any other nights this week that you are..." he swallowed, "Free?"

"No, I don't think so." answered Lucrecia innocently.

"Oh." sighed the Turk, defeated.

"Why?"

"No matter."

Lucrecia frowned a little... he was keeping something from her. "All right, well then suit yourself." she said, continuing up the stairs behind him.

"You don't need to know." Vincent sent her a look.

"All right!"

A moment later Lucrecia gave a half-hearted smile, and changed the subject, "You played beautifully..." she gestured to the flute-case he held in his hand.

"I've been playing all my life." Vincent calmly answered.

She nodded, "I'd love to hear it again sometime..."

"Maybe that room can be my new waiting place for you." he offered. She merely laughed.

"No, Hojo would be out of his mind in no time if you came every day..."

His shoulders sank a little, but he nodded to show he agreed with her.

"Maybe someday... we can go back to that cave, and you can play for me there." she offered, almost as if stealing the thoughts straight out of Vincent's mind, yet again.

He looked up at her, at first a little startled at hearing his idea repeated on another's lips almost word-for-word. "Uhh... sure." he finally fumbled out what he wanted to say, "Yes, sure, I'd love that..."

"All right." Lucrecia grinned, "It's a date. When next we... have time." she held out a hand, and he took it, agreeing.

"Next time."


	7. Chapter 7

But next time proved to be quite a long wait. August and September had both passed since they arrived there, and in a flurry of comings and goings by the various workers, the only constants at the mansion were Vincent, Hojo, and Lucrecia.

As time dragged on, the initial setup of the laboratory, it's equipment, various new-fangled mechanisms, and some of the smaller experiments that were already close to completion came and went, and thier founders along with it. Vincent found himself among unfamiliar faces at those occasional mealtime gatherings.

Kedris had left with the advent of his claw, probably to go back to ShinRa headquarters and get paid. But since then, Vincent had become acquainted with an eager young boy named Daishin, who was apparently only around to fix things when they broke.

Rooms freed up, as a result of this shifting of occupants. One day, when he had chanced to wait by the door to the crypt room, Vincent had even overheard Hojo inviting Lucrecia to come stay in a 'nicer' room upstairs, that was 'away from that Turk, because surely a lady wouldn't want to stay in the same room as a man like that.' Listening even more closely, he thought he heard Lucrecia's half-whispered decline to the invitation, because, he thought she said, 'it was you who banished me down there in the first place, and now I'm finding I quite like it.'

A snarl, and a slam, undoubtedly of the door in her face, were the only other sounds in the exchange he heard. He walked her back that night.

"I'm sorry I've been so busy." she said while changing into sleeping clothes that night. Vincent was sitting on his own bed with his back turned to her, and his head bowed bashfully. He gave a grunted answer.

She giggled, then walked towards him, and climbed onto the bed next to him. He turned to look. She had dark circles under her blurry eyes, definite signs of sleep deprivation... and he needn't guess why... a whereas he rose at six, he still found Lucrecia consistently gone at that time... and tonight, the clock in the dark entrance hall had tolled twelve as he passed through on his way down to the basement.

Yet beyond all this, she, curiously enough, did not have the wearied disposition Vincent had been accustomed to seeing after her long hours down in the lab. That strange spark of excitement that had overtaken her the day they ran through the mountains seemed constantly present. He could only hazard one guess:

"But you're close to the resolution of your experiment, I suppose?"

To this she nodded eagerly, sending those honey brown waves falling all over her shoulders and back. "Very close... any day now..." she whispered.

The clock struck one. It was as if a funeral bell had sounded then, signaling the end to a something that Vincent wasn't even sure existed... he swallowed down the tight feeling in his throat. "So... after that... all of this will be over, then?" he asked, trying to sound casual, and keep his voice steady.

"I don't know..." she toyed with her hair, twirling a lock idly around her finger. She didn't seem to understand the gravity this situation held for Vincent, "I sure hope we don't pack up and leave... I'm beginning to like this place." she looked up at him and grinned, before remarking absently, "...it seems so soon since we first arrived here."

He nodded, thinking darkly, _Too soon..._

Another silence bounced back and fourth between them, until Lucrecia asked in a distracted tone, "What's the date?"

"Um..." Vincent thought a moment, "October the... 2nd, I believe."

"Oh, dear." Lucrecia mumbled, getting up from his bed.

He turned around, "What?"

"Oh, dear." she merely said again.

Vincent raised an eyebrow as he looked at her.

"Well, I need my sleep..." she decided abruptly, "…could be tomorrow!" she reached for the light, and turned it out. In the dark, the sound of fabric shifting on fabric heralded the girl slipping beneath her sheets. Vincent followed suit, at first merely staring blankly at the shadowed ceiling, before turning his head towards her, and trying again:

"'Oh, dear' what?" he whispered.

"Nothing, never you mind." said she, yawning. "Now really, please don't keep me up all night, arguing." she said.

He heaved a sigh, and turned away.

The next day started as normal. Vincent woke to find Lucrecia gone, then walked out into the library, and set about flipping through some volumes. Around midday, he heard some action in the entrance hall, but couldn't find the interest to go and investigate. This was accompanied by familiar voices talking hurriedly, before the door closed, and the noises ceased.

In minutes, Lucrecia came striding proudly into the room where he sat. "We did it!" she exclaimed, "We extracted the virus! Jenova's cells are pure again!"

"That's great!" Vincent said, smiling. He stood to greet her, masking a smile at her excitement... she was practically bouncing, and seemed as if she were about to jump right out of her skin. Even with this eagerness, Lucrecia always spoke of these scientific achievements in such a cool, teacher-like tone. It was probably a mixture of that, and her great patience that were the reason why he had any clue as to what was happening on the floor beneath his feet.

"I know." she said, "Hojo's just left to deliver some samples to the president of ShinRa."

"He's left?"

"Yes."

"How long will he be gone?"

"I don't know..." Lucrecia thought aloud, "A week? Two weeks?"

Vincent couldn't help a sly smile, which Lucrecia caught out of the corner of her eye. She stifled a quiet chuckle.

"So..." she breathed.

"So?"

She grinned, and narrowed her eyes, her gaze drifting around the room a little bit before they fell back on Vincent, "So, you owe me a concert." she nodded her head toward the door.

"Right now?"

"Why not?"

He smiled again, nodded, and spun off, disappearing into his room. He came back out, holding the black box by it's strap, halfway to her, he shifted it to his left hand, and tucked close under his arm, offering his right hand to her. She took it willingly.

Hand in hand, the two started out down the somewhat familiar path, together again. Vincent had been looking forward to playing in the little materia cave... he had also been looking forward to playing for Lucrecia, not even knowing how much she'd been looking forward to listening.


	8. Chapter 8

At the end of the week, Hojo had still not come back, so, without instructions, and therefore without the ability to further progress the experiment, the scientists were left to their own devices.

Vincent and Lucrecia were together often, much to Vincent's happiness, swapping stories and chatting idly about one topic or another... they turned out to have more in common than one would expect a scientist and an assassin to share. When the two were not at eachother's sides, he sometimes accompanied Daishin, the new mechanic, who had recently begun the new endeavor of making guns, a hobby of which the Turk much approved, and enjoyed discussing, despite the boy's rather wearying personality.

Around midway through the second week, Hojo called home. Lucrecia had a brief conversation with him, before gathering together all those that were present, and informing them of his imminent arrival: He'd be back in two days.

This was bad news to Vincent, but he took it standing, not wanting his lowered spirits to dampen the girl's mood. She would need all the spare enthusiasm she could get when Hojo returned with a new assignment, and probably an even more rigorous work schedule.

"We should go out." Lucrecia remarked idly that night, while she and Vincent were settling into their respective beds.

Vincent, who had been sipping at a cup of mint tea, sputtered, a hand flying to his throat, as he choked down the liquid. Coughing, he set down the glass on their mutual nightstand.

"Are you okay?" his companion asked, worried.

"Yeah, fine..." he managed.

"So what do you think?" she pressed.

"About what?"

"About going out!" she threw her hands up jokingly, turning, with that mysterious smile of hers, to him.

He bent under that smile... it was part of her amazing, however elusive playful side. She was still a young girl beneath the robotically exact attitude she wore while bearing the weight pf Hojo's orders, and within that dark basement-level room in which he had her under his oppressive control. When he left, it was as if she'd drawn in a breath of life. Were it not for the scientist's extended leave, Vincent was sure she wouldn't have pursued him on this point.

He was silent a long time, staring thoughtfully down at his knees beneath the blanket, before turning his eyes up to meet her, "What do you mean when you say that?" he questioned nervously.

"Just..." she was beginning to falter, "Just the two of us, while we still can. I don't know what our next assignment is going to be, Hojo didn't give too many details over the phone, but he sounded positively _giddy_ about it. Apparently it's going to require a lot more of my time."

Vincent's fist clutched the sheets, and he grit his teeth together... it figured.

"But I suppose it can wait." she sounded disappointed, but continued to sadly smile for him. Vincent, however, noticed the change, and this chance slipping through his fingers...

"No." he said, turning slightly to face her, "I agree, I think we should."

She brightened.

"But when?"

"How about the night after tomorrow?" she offered.

"The night Hojo gets back?"

"He'll be back in the morning."

Vincent nodded.

"I'll set it up." Lucrecia said with a nod.

"I ca-" Vincent began to protest.

"No! I'll do it." she insisted, beginning to lie back and pull the covers up decisively.

"But you always-"

"Then we'll continue the tradition, now, shall we?" Lucrecia smiled, the seldom-present defiant look in her eyes making Vincent sigh, and give in.

"All right." he agreed.

"All right. I'll see you at the well in town on Friday night, at 7-o-clock." The light went out.

Vincent was surprised to wake up the next morning, and not see Lucrecia. In fact, he progressed through most of the day without running into her. Finally, curiosity gave in, and he descended the stairs to the basement to go looking for the girl.

Quietly, he moved around, not wanting to attract attention to himself, as he certainly shouldn't be seen poking around the laboratory... he hoped nobody would be in there, though the chances of that were in his favor. A hand extended to push open the door, and it swung freely, revealing no-one within. He heaved a sigh of relief that he hadn't gotten caught doing something that would surely have gotten him fired, but frowned slightly as well because he still hadn't found Lucrecia...

Defeated, he closed the door, and returned to his usual daily routine of reading in the library... he'd be quite the book expert at this rate. A few hours in, he sighed frustratedly, and tossed the book in his lap carelessly aside. This wasn't how he'd planned spending his last few days alone with the scientist... and with is forehead resting in his hand, he simmered in silence, his mind demanding to know where she'd gone.

It was mid afternoon before she returned, cheerful as ever, to find Vincent sulking quietly in his room. He sat on his bed, amidst various stained cloths and liquids he'd been using to polish Quicksilver. The case lay open in front of him, and the little hatch within as well. The silver bullets were gone. Lucrecia found him playing boredly with unloading and reloading them into the spinning barrel of the gun. He looked up when she entered, his grim face immediately lightening, no longer a look of brooding anger, but now one that seemed as if he'd been denied something he very much desired, as well as slight concern.

"Hello." she cooed melodically.

"Where were you?" he asked, clicking shut the gun, but neglecting to take out the special silver bullets.

"Out and about." she replied, "I wanted to go shopping."

"Shopping?" he repeated, "In _this_ town? Where?"

She snickered, "There's shops here. It's cute, family things, not like the huge department stores back in Midgar."

He shrugged, so she continued, while shedding an overlayer of clothing, dropping her jacket on the bed. "I talked to this nice young man at the jewelry store..." she remarked, "Wild blonde hair... named..." she thought a moment, while producing a small bag from her pocket, and shuffling through it, "...Trey Strife, I think he said it was. I think he was flirting with me."

Vincent's eyes narrowed as he thought grimly that the Strife-kid must have been doing so pretty bluntly for Lucrecia to have noticed.

"Anyway..." she shook her head, "I was gone longer than I thought I'd be. You know how time flies." she shrugged, looking at him knowingly.

Vincent nodded glumly, and began cleaning up the things on his bed.

"I still have to make plans, so I might be gone just as long tomorrow." she informed him. To this, he looked up, making a sound in his throat."

"Oh," she watched him guiltily, "Don't give me that, we'll see eachother at night..."

Giving in yet again, he nodded, continuing to put away his things in the silence. He disregarded her presence as he did so, bending to push his bag back under his bed after everything was once again inside.

"I know you miss me alot when I'm working..." she went on to say as he did this, "...but then, I can't help it. Don't get me wrong, this past week and a half I've spent with you has been..." she stopped, turning to him. By now, he too was watching her, as she searched for the word, "...absolutely divine, but I needed to get some things done..." she turned to him, watching the Turk as he now stood. "I promise to make it up to you on our date tomorrow."

Vincent was about to say something, but his voice got stuck halfway to his mouth. So it was a real date... he swallowed. This knowledge didn't make him any less nervous. In fact, now, he was probably more so. He didn't know _how _to go on a date... he'd never been on one. Still, he managed to summon words forth again, "Doesn't... the man usually take the woman out?" he tried feebly to make a joke out of it, but failed.

"Lucrecia..." with a sigh, he stepped forward. His hands fell on her shoulders, and he pulled her in a little, holding her so that their bodies were a mere hair's breadth away from eachother. She gasped. Leaning down, over her slightly, Vincent moved so that their bangs touched, his eyes were closed as he spoke, "Don't be guilty... you're doing all the work for me..." he explained.

"I wouldn't have it any other way." breathed the startled scientist. "Vincent..."

He quickly let her go, turning to look off in another direction, "I really need to find a way to turn the tables at some point." he said flatly, all of a sudden back in control of himself.

She smiled, slowly drawing away. "You really have a sweet and righteous side to you, Vincent Valentine..." she mentioned under her breath. He blushed.

"Well I promise to let you have your turn, then." she said, "One day I'll just quit, and then it'll be up to you."

He gave a halfhearted laugh, because this had actually scared him more than it reassured him.

The two waited out the rest of the evening, before turning in early that night.

xxx

**Author's Ending Note Thingy: **Wow, so lame ending, right? I had alot of trouble with this chapter... I didn't want to turn it into one of those cliche 'You're not spending enough time with me', 'Yeah, well my life doesn't revolve around you!' argument things... and I'm trying very hard to keep Vincent and Lucrecia in character... Lucrecia constantly wants to become Aeris... and Vincent occasionally strays toward a roleplay character of mine... and if anyone who knows me is reading this, they probably know who I'm talking about... haha. Okay, so next chapter will be better, I promise. Please review!


	9. Chapter 9

In the morning, Vincent rose and Lucrecia was gone yet again. He sighed, and moved to the small closet on his side of the room. Only three things hung in there: the read cloak of his father's, the black and silver Turk dress uniform... he didn't think that would be quite appropriate for this occasion, and the three piece suit. This third clothes hanger he lifted off the rack, and set down on his bed.

As the day wore on, with still no sign of Lucrecia, the Turk was only becoming more and more fidgety and agitated. Would the suit be enough? What if Lucrecia was much better dressed than that? What if she was more casual, and he showed up looking like a fool? Should he get her something? A little present? What should he get for her? Too many of these questions popped up and plagued his mind.

At one point in the day he, partially on impulse, and partially due to the undying need to just get up and do something, he rushed out and plucked some wild roses from where they were growing in various patches about the town.

Six-o-clock... darkness fell. There was still no sign of Lucrecia. He'd gotten dressed, very early, as he would often do in other nerve-wracking situations, and now he sat, tapping his foot anxiously, on a chair in the entrance hall. His eyes were glued to the grandfather clock, ticking away:

Six-ten, the pendulum swung back and forth, almost hypnotizing him as his eyes followed it in it's endless arc, back and forth, back and forth, and occasionally up to the clock face and hands to see the time:

Six-thirty. One red rose was clasped in a sweaty hand, it's twin rested daintily in his breast pocket.

Six-fourty, he let out a long-held breath, a hand passing through his meticulously combed hair. He attempted to tuck his bangs back behind his ears. They didn't stay. His eyes darted up:

Six-fourty-five, and back down again. He loosened, then straightened the red tie at his neck, bit his lip, shifted positions...

Six-fifty. _Stay frosty, Vincent..._ he told himself, getting up and beginning to pace back and forth, like the pendulum, in front of the door. He stopped, and opened it a crack to chance a peek out. She wasn't there. He closed it again, and turned back to the clock:

Six-fifty-five. He exhaled heavily again, and reminded himself, _frosty..._ closing his eyes, and taking another deep breath. He walked up to the dusty glass of a window, quickly wiping the dirt away. He examined his reflection, hand combing through his hair a little bit more. Then the bell began to toll, the little melodic chime it did every sixty minutes before counting down the hour... Terror struck the heart of the Turk, a cold chill went down his spine...

One, he froze, fingers halfway through a slight tangle he'd just found.  
Two, he turned around, staring disbelievingly at the hands on the tall clock.  
Three, he started over towards the chair where he'd been sitting.  
Four, he snatched up the rose from the arm of it.  
Five, he was scrambling towards the door, reaching it, and opening it wide.  
Six, he heaved a sigh of relief... Lucrecia was not yet at the well. He wasn't late.  
Seven, the door slammed shut on ShinRa mansion as he made his way casually down the steps, straightening the collar of his jacket as he went.

He sat on a small crate that had been left on the ground next to it, his elbows on his knees, the rose held loosely between his fingers. He didn't have to wait long before he heard clicking footfalls down the street. Slowly, he turned to see a shadow walking up along the cobblestone path. Despite the darkness, the figure was unmistakable as Lucrecia's, and he stood.

When she walked into the light, several differences were immediately apparent. The first that Vincent noticed were her eyes...

"Where are your glasses?" he asked quietly as she approached.

"Is that any way to greet your date as soon as you see her?" she asked, the corners of her mouth turning up ever-so-slightly to show that she was kidding, "I'm wearing contacts."

He nodded, looking her over. She was in an off-the-shoulder black dress made of a textured fabric, of which the fibers occasionally gave off the tiniest sparkle. It had a short hemline, from beneath which peeked a red satin ruffle that reached her knees. Slits on the sides of the black revealed that the red ruffle was in fact a full, separate skirt beneath. She was taller, a result of red strappy sandals. Two lines of pearls encircled her neck, and matched the delicate studs in her ears. Darkened eyelashes, a touch of blush on her cheek, and gloss on her lips completed the effect.

The second notable difference was that her hair was down. On a regular day, she would always wear two blue ribbons in it, one that held it up in a ponytail, another that wrapped the wild waves together as they cascaded out of the first. This night, the chestnut-brown mane was left to it's own devices. She only wore one, tied low around the flowing locks, velvety soft, and blood red.

"I'd hoped you'd wear red." the girl first indicated his tie, then her own black and red outfit, expertly matching his, "Shall we be off?" she asked, smiling, after having allowed Vincent a moment to survey her.

He nodded, "But, first..." he stepped back, extending the hand in which he held the rose to take hers, noting idly that she had also applied some red nailpolished to her normally well-manicured fingers. Trading off the rose in this manner, he simultaneously dipped into a low bow, and pressed her soft hand to his lips, chancing to look up as he stood upright once again. Clearing his throat, and suppressing a smile of satisfaction with how well he seemed to be doing, he offered his arm to her, and she, after having secured the rose behind her ear, took it, smiling.

"It's just over there." she pointed to a dimly-lit building neighboring ShinRa mansion. He nodded slowly, before flinching at an unexpected motion… he looked down, and saw that Lucrecia had nonchalantly hooked her arm around his, and was looking away casually. With the darkness, he couldn't be sure of the tinge of color on her face was makeup, or natural. Without a spoken word, the two then headed up the street.

When they reached the building, the door was opened by a friendly looking elderly lady, who welcomed them in. Vincent hadn't realized that this was a restaurant, but then, it was very small, nonetheless. Once inside, he saw another couple there, sitting at one of three empty tables on a raised tile platform to one side of the house. Menus and place-settings were already laid out. The kitchen was barred from view only by a sliding screen, now left open, as the woman who had greeted them went inside it.

"You two just settle yourselves down, now, we'll be with you in a moment. Rayne!" she called.

The girl at the other table quickly stood up, "Coming, mother...!" she called back. She glanced down at the boy she was leaving behind, muttering a hurried somethingorother to him, before also disappearing behind the screen, her golden blonde hair disappearing behind her.

Vincent pulled out a chair for Lucrecia, waiting for her to sit, before taking his own across the table from her.

Lucrecia rested her elbows on the table, knitting her fingers together, and resting her chin on them. She stared at Vincent, a small smile growing the longer the moments passed.

Finally, Vincent, no longer able to conveniently avoid that gaze, asked, "What is it…?"

"Your hair is a lot longer than it was when you first arrived." She pointed out.

He nodded, "It's annoying… always blocking my vision. I don't think there's anyplace around here where I can get it cut."

"I like it long." She said, sparing Vincent the embarrassment of being stared at any longer, as she looked past. A moment later, she leaned in and whispered, "That boy behind you is the one from the jewelry store. Mr. Strife."

"Oh?" Vincent casually glanced back to look.

She nodded, "He and that Rayne-girl make a cute couple."

He smirked.

"May I take your orders?" came the waitress' voice, as she emerged from behind the screen to the kitchen. Lucrecia put a hand to her lips, trying to hide the smile, and the laugh that was bubbling up from below, as the aforementioned girl came over.

"Yes, thank you..." Vincent picked up his cue.

The evening passed well, Vincent finding himself settling much easier into the situation than he thought he would. The visiting jewelry shop owner soon left, leaving Vincent and Lucrecia alone in the candlelight, accompanied by the smells and sounds of food cooking, the occasional short exchange between mother and daughter, and the music playing gently on the radio.

After their meal, and the bill, which caused such a disagreement between Lucrecia and Vincent over who would pay, that the woman finally just put it on the house, the two lingered in their seats, chatting idly. During a lull in conversation, Lucrecia leaned to one side out of her chair, and picked up a large bag that Vincent hadn't noticed was there before. She set it on the recently cleared-off table. "Here." she said, "This is for you."

"For-... what?" the gunman gave her and odd look.

"For you. A present. Take it!"

"You got me a-..." he stopped, staring at it hopelessly... and he'd only sprung for a hand-picked rose... damnit.

"Go on..." she urged a little more softly, "...open it. You'll like it, I promise."

As soon this was said, Vincent couldn't help the images that floated into his mind of some awful sort of gift... like the way things happened in comedic movies, where the woman hand-knitted her boyfriend a sweater with a big heart on it or something, and he had to feign gratefulness while receiving it, and, in the worst-case scenario, even wear it out in public sometime later. But he trusted Lucrecia more than that.

In reaching for the bag, another thing dawned on him... 'boyfriend'. That was a serious word, one he wasn't quite sure he was... authorized to use yet. It carried alot of weight to it.

Speaking of weight, Vincent found as he lifted the bag off the table that it was a great deal heavier than he'd expected. Whatever was inside clattered as he set it on his lap. At least it ruled out sweaters.

"What-" he began.

She cut him off, saying in an exasperated tone, "Just _open_ it."

Vincent pulled apart the two sides of the bag, and fingered through the tissue paper on the inside, until he saw what was within. He looked up, appearing shocked... this had been nothing like what he'd expected.

"You like them?" Lucrecia questioned calmly.

"I can't accept these..." he murmured.

"Why not?" she seemed offended, "I think they're in your size... and they seemed like something you'd really like"

Vincent drew out the easily knee-height brown leather boots. They were adorned with well-crafted brass armor on the pointed toes, and around the ankles. She was quite right, he did like them. A lot. And he also had no idea how the girl could have thought of this. It was... a rather unconventional first-date present. "They're..." he started, trying to find a reason to decline them.

"...yours." she finished, leaning over the table and staring at him pointedly.

"How much did you _pay_?" he asked, desperately, running a hand down the cold metal.

"That's a secret." Lucrecia moved back, satisfied in the reaction she'd gotten out of the present.

"Oh, Lucrecia, you should've told me..." Vincent began, stuffing them rather unceremoniously back into the bag, "I would've gotten you..." he stopped, actually having no idea what he could've gotten the girl.

She waved it off, and got up out of her chair. "No, it's okay..." she assured him, as he too rose from his seat. "Goodnight!" she interrupted herself, waving to the lady in the kitchen, "Thank you for the wonderful meal."

"Your welcome." the woman called back as they left.

They walked out into the dark street together, Lucrecia turning to Vincent to finish her thought, "They were for your birthday."

Vincent's eyes widened marginally. He'd forgotten... October 13th. That was today.

"Back when I looked at your file to find out about your father..." she began to explain, while they walked up the stone path to the mansion, "...it said your birthday in there as well."

"And you remembered it this long?" Vincent asked, amazed.

"It's only been two months. Happy 27th, Vincent..."

He smiled, as they stopped on the front steps, pausing before opening the door. Vincent's hand was halfway to the handle, when he reconsidered. He grabbed it anyway, but didn't turn. His gaze was fixed on Lucrecia, and after a moment, she realized this, and looked back at him... watching questioningly.

There was a beat of silence and stillness, broken only by the sparse sounds of an autumn night, the last few crickets still chirping their song, and a wolf, off somewhere in the mountains. Vincent drew in a shuddering breath, then, in an almost awkward, jerky movement, began to lean forward.

The hand that was not on the door lifted to the side of Lucrecia's face, shifting it up towards his. With his thumb, he pushed a lock of hair out of the way, and tilted his own head slightly to one side. Apprehensive about breaking the fragile moment, she didn't so much as let the air out of her lungs, as he hesitantly drew closer still, until their lips brushed one another tantalizingly, and he finally applied the softest pressure to complete the kiss.

The flickering light above the ShinRa mansion porch would have blinded them to anything going on outside its radius, even if they'd been paying attention. It also, however, spotlighted their actions, especially to one passenger in the black van that drove up across town.

Hojo's face twisted into an ugly frown as he watched the two familiar figures embrace in the night. He waited until long after they went in, before he followed. The twelve tones of midnight sounded on the grandfather clock in the entry hall as he walked in, defining the transitory line between one day and the next, and drawing a close to Friday the 13th.


	10. Chapter 10

The next morning, Vincent awoke to an unexpected sight and sensation. It started with the tickle of a fingertip stroking his face breaking through to his subconscious in his sleep. He woke, then felt the same touch smoothing away his hair.

With a jerk, he caught the hand in his, making its owner jump a little. He cracked his eyelids, squinting in the bright early morning sunrise, to see Lucrecia, sitting patiently, waiting for him to wake up. This confused him for a moment. She was never here. Still, he stroked her palm lightly, and nuzzled it gently, asking in a soft, half-asleep tone, "What're you still doing here?" he opened his eyes blearily, barely making out the shape and colors of the rose he had given her last night, sitting in a vase on the nightstand.

"Should I go?"

"No, no..." he yawned, and shifted beneath the blankets so that he was lying on his back, with a better view of her, "...has Hojo not arrived yet?"

"Yes, he's back." her voice was shaky as she said it, her fingers curling around Vincent's hand.

He watched her in silence, as she stared down at her lap, eyes wide with anxiety. "What's wrong?" he pressed.

She looked up, her mouth open to speak, but the words nonexistent for a moment, before she winced, and lurched over, her head hanging as she said, "Oh, he saw us, Vincent...!" she gasped, "He came back late last night, and he saw us at the door..."

Vincent, for a moment, tried to imagine why this was such a bad thing, before he remembered what exactly had taken place on the doorstep last night. His face flushed marginally, before he said defiantly, "So what? What does he have anything to do with it?"

"He's arrogant, Vincent, you know that. Arrogant, and egotistical, and overprotective. I already talked to him today, and he disapproves, as I would expect he would. He doesn't think that we... I should be involved in a... workplace relationship."

Vincent's lips tightened together. The blame was ridiculous...

"He feels that someone like me shouldn't get involved with any co-workers... especially not ones from other sects of ShinRa. Not while on the job." she elaborated.

"Bullshit." the Turk spat, now sitting up, but resting back on his palms. "That's completely out of his jurisdiction to decide! He can't tell you-"

"Vincent, please..." Lucrecia tried desperately to calm him "He can call the headquarters and make up some false acclaim so that they send a replacement for you, and you'll have to go back home." she warned. He merely sighed. "He's toldme the details of our new experiment." she went on to say a moment later, "And he was right, it is going to require a lot more of my time. But besides that, he gave me several days off in order to let me have time to consider if I want to remain in the project or not."

Vincent turned to her again from where he'd been staring sulkily out the window. "Why would you leave?" he asked, a touch of dread in his voice.

"You haven't heard the description of the experiment yet." she frowned.

"Then, please tell me..."

Lucrecia took in a deep breath, "They want to engineer a new Cetra using pure cells from Jenova." she said, "They want a child with cells in them from the very start, and pure ones, too... not like the kind that SOLDIER members have."

"And that means...?" Vincent was finding this a little hard to follow.

She looked down, "That means... an embryo must be infused with Jenova cells while still in the early stages of development, so that the cells will grow with it naturally. Yet the... components necessary to create such an embryo will still be required to be derived from... a more mundane source." her cheeks flushed, despite the cryptic quality of the scientific jargon, "And, well... after that, the child will need a... a vessel to develop in. Better yet, the child can develop within the vessel to start with... and that vessel will be... me."

Only a momentary pause broke the stream of conversation, before Vincent realized what this meant, and gasped, "Then, the experiment is going to make you..."

She nodded.

The Turk looked positively outraged, "But... but that's immoral!"

"Not if I give my consent."

"But why would you?" he didn't understand.

"All in the name of science, Vincent." she said a little over-brightly.

"But they can't make you..."

"They don't have to!" Lucrecia sounded offended, and leaned forward in her chair, glaring down at him, "I want to do it on my own, without any of their persuading!"

"You... do...?" he asked sounding both betrayed and astonished.

"Well, that's just it..." she settled back down, calming slightly as she spoke, "I don't know yet, that's why they're giving me time to decide."

Vincent was quiet a while, trying to force his mind to look at it in a less narrow perspective. Finally, he asked, "Is there any danger, in this procedure, to you...?"

"We don't know. Nothing like this has ever been done before." she said. "But as to if it's a risk I'm willing to take... I'll have to weigh the consequences."

"How will they get you-..." the question had leapt from his mouth before it had even fully formed in his mind, yet he stopped himself before the end, wincing at the blunt wording.

Lucrecia cleared her throat, her face reddening... "I... I believe it will be... a-artificial insemination."

Vincent tried to hide the huge relief this gave him, "And the, er... donor... who... who would that be?"

"I don't know. Probably Hojo."

The Turk's stomach turned at the very thought of this, and to keep himself silent, he bit down on the inside of his cheek so hard that he tasted blood. Lucrecia's perceptive eyes did not miss this reaction, but she only sighed in response.

"I'm going to go for a walk..." she said softly, but firmly, standing from her chair, and moving toward the door.

"I can go with you." Vincent offered a little too quickly after she'd spoken, throwing off the blankets, finally, and standing up.

"No, that's quite all right." she said, smiling in that polite way, "I wouldn't want to make you get dressed all in a hurry..." she looked him over, in his blue-and-white striped pajamas, "...besides, I think I really do need... some time to myself. To think."

He nodded understandingly, flopping back down, belly-first on the bed, after she'd left. _Not the ideal way to spend the morning after the first date..._ he thought glumly, burying his face in a pillow. Something had bothered him slightly about the fact that, during the conversation, she hadn't specifically asked him what _he _thought she should do. Of course, it wasn't entirely his place to make that decision for her... and she had said that she didn't want any outside persuasion... but he would also hazard a guess that Lucrecia saw it was no more than a waste of breath to pursue his opinion, when the answer was already as plainly obvious as it was, especially when equipped with the information that Hojo would be such an... intimate part in the experiment as well.

He tried his hardest, while lying there, to banish all thought of Hojo from his mind... he was sure, certain, positive, that he and the other man were not rivals in love... as far as he knew, the scientist hadn't shown one shred of affection for the girl, and definitely had not received any back.

He sighed, and glanced to his right… for the first time this morning, catching a better sight of the rose on the shelf. The vase was dry, and the little plant had been neglected of water… it was already wilted.

Love... was that what this was? The tingling that started in the pit of his stomach, and rose through his heart to his throat whenever he saw Lucrecia? The hunger for her attentions, and her presence at his side, which fed him full of that soft, radiant heat? The way so simple a creature, modest to say the least, inspired such profound desires within him, which, though they urged him onward in every endeavor, were never let to push beyond the realm of what he thought was appropriate?

Despite all these questions, he was sure of one thing, the truly mad scientist couldn't possibly experience the same feelings as he did whenever he looked at her, or talked to her. He seemed, from what Vincent could draw from his limited pools of knowledge, completely incapable of a passion like that. Passion in general, no, he had it for his work, and that was what the Turk was most worried about... Lucrecia was about to _become_ his work. Would that passion he had for his career blossom into something else, a love for Lucrecia perhaps?

Vincent put it out of his mind. All he knew, is that Lucrecia seemed to take in whatever he felt for her, and then send her own feelings back. That she, at the very least, did not shy away from his advances, as she did Hojo's. In these facts he was secure. Those, and that he wanted to stay with her, live with her, hold her, and protect her...he wanted to keep her safe, especially if that meant 'away from Hojo'.

A new thought crossed his mind, hours later, when he was revisiting these thoughts. All those things he wanted... they sounded very much like marriage vows.

xxx

**Author's Ending Note Thingy: **So... I hope the end to that last chapter didn't keep you in too much suspense... I doubt it did, since it's only been a day since I updated, but I did mean for it to be that kind of 'woo, ominous' sort of feeling, there. XD Haha. I hope more people review... there was this huge flurry of them in the beginning, and it's since slowed down. I don't even need you to review on the latest chapter! Just review on the last chapter, chapter 9, it's my favorite chapter! I wanna hear what you think too! And that's... not to discourage you from reviewing here...


	11. Chapter 11

Vincent let the days pass, doing his best to stay out of Lucrecia's way for the time being... right now, she needed her space, and if that condition ever changed, it was up to her to approach him about it. He sometimes took to returning to the crypt room with his flute, and playing, though the Turk was always careful to go there when Hojo wasn't in the lab. Though these occasions were rare, he always left with a cleared head, or at the very least, eased nerves. Much to his relief, Hojo, too seemed to be busying himself with the initial preparations that were necessary whether or not Lucrecia hung around. Just thinking about that made his heart stop until the thoughts went away. He was sure Hojo wouldn't've even blinked an eye at the girl's departure.

Lucrecia passed those days alone and in silence. Apparently the gravity of her choice had struck a deeper cord with her than Vincent had expected. That, or she was much less the creature of impulse she had recently been turning out to be. Her reaction was much more extreme than the Turk had expected, and in a way had depressed him in the way that she was even bothering to consider having a child with Hojo.

He saw her walking down empty corridors, and sometimes exploring the town's and surrounding wilderness' passageways, always with a look of deep concentration, unless she knew she was being watched, in which case it was quickly replaced by by one of absent contentment. She was never one to let her real emotions show.

After only a few days, this social isolation, that she herself had willingly gone into, proved to be too much. Vincent saw her enter the basement. He felt his stomach knot... why was she going to _Hojo first_? Had she made her decision already? He had stopped short as he saw her, while walking towards the front door, and stood there still, entranced by watching the open stairway down into the cellar, and the thoughts he had tormenting him inside his own head. It was not long, though, before she came back up, and caught site of him.

"Oh, Vincent... there you are..." she muttered feebly, turning and coming towards him.

He gave a silent nod in response... had she been looking for him? He tried not to get his hopes up.

"It's been a long time since we've talked." she muttered, "But I don't suppose there's been much to talk about anyway."

He shrugged, and she sighed, looking at him as if she expected some verbal response. Vincent watched her eyes, almost trying to convey his own apologies for not giving one. It was hard for him not to press her for an answer... his curiosity was too much, despite the fact that neither option was particularly favorable to him: either she left, and he never saw her again, or she stayed and mothered Hojo's child.

But what about his promise to himself, it struck him. The promise to always stay with her? Yes, he'd follow if she left, he'd stay if she remained, for good or for bad, he could do nothing else, he would _not _just leave her on her own here, even if it was not his duty to stay, he would have. He'd make that promise to her now...

Two thoughts meshed together in his head, and he drew one conclusion from them. He looked down at her, standing there in front of him awkwardly, shifting from foot to foot. A full smile overtook his face as the midget idea became full and round in his head, blossoming into something greater the longer he focused on it.

"We should go out." he offered, and she looked up, confused for a moment, upon seeing his broad smile, never openly displayed before. She returned it slowly.

"Out where...?"

"Somewhere." he replied with a shrug, "Anywhere but here. Just to get out and away from it all. All... this." he motioned towards the dreary, imposing walls of the mansion, and promptly began heading for the door, walking backwards and beckoning her to follow.

"Hey... wait!" she jogged to catch up, an eyebrow raised curiously, "Vincent, what has..." she started to laugh as he put a hand on her lower back, and spun her out the door, then soon followed, himself. She sidestepped, and evaded him, then took off at a jog towards the well, while he followed like an anxious puppy, nipping at her heels. "What has come over you?" she finally asked, breathless, flopping down on the side of the well.

"Wanderlust." he replied, "an itching to get out of that house. Anyone would, _should_, want to get out of there after being holed up for so many days... maybe that's why Hojo is out of his mind." he grumbled, "He never leaves."

Lucrecia looked down, the mere mention of him having begun to elicit a different reaction from her in recent days.

"You probably don't feel like I do..." Vincent turned his face up to the sun, "You've been out and about..."

"Well nothing was stopping you from doing the same..."

"I didn't want to run into you..." he looked at her as if this fact were obvious, "You didn't seem to want company at the time."

She looked down, "About that..."

Here it is! This might be the answer Vincent had long been waiting for... would she stay or go? But no, he didn't want to hear it now... he interrupted her, "I don't mind, I completely understand, but..." he watched her out of the corner of his eyes as he spoke, "I don't know if you've reached a decision yet, I don't want to know, not now, and I won't make you tell me ever, if you don't want. I promise I won't try to sway you, either..." he looked down at the ground for a moment, "Either way... let's not... even go there right now. I want to... to take you away from here. Just a short break from all of this tension."

She chuckled, "And so the great hero and the damsel just ride off into the sunset, like that?"

Vincent grinned, "That's the idea."

Moments later they were running like they were teenagers escaping from the watchful eyes of parents to go off and be together, the twisted smiles of pleasure from the rebellious feeling still lingered on their faces.

Vincent slowed for Lucrecia to catch up as they neared the gates of Nibelheim. He turned to watch her running toward him, and found his thoughts also running about of their own accord. Yes, even if this was a temporary exile, it would be a good one. He would make it good, even if the hero didn't end up with the damsel in the end... this was for her sake.

"Oh, look..." he said playfully, walking around to the driver's side of the parked black van as Lucrecia approached, "And they even left the keys in for us." Once inside, he started the engine, and they took off on the roads through the wilderness.

"You know, you really do look like a different person when you smile." Lucrecia said, "Though I suppose everyone does, I've just never seen you _really_ do it before, like you just did."

The corners of his lips turned up, but he kept his eyes on the road, "Oh? It's that big a change?"

"Of course! You look much... handsomer."

He blushed, and chanced a glance over at her, "When you smile, you look like an angel."

Not much more than an hour later, the van had long since left the grey mountains of Nibelheim, and passed through the sprawling plains, and rolling hills surrounding, and had progressed into rocky, canyoney terrain yet again.

"Where are we?" Lucrecia asked, looking out the window at the swiftly passing brown rock formations.

"Cosmo Canyon." he replied, pulling the vehicle to a stop near the bottom of a gently sloping hill. He shut it off, and looked at her, "Let's get out."

She opened the door and breathed deep the dry, hot air, Vincent appearing at her side not much later. So they had ridden off into the sunset, they soon found out, for as they neared the top of the slope, and the cliff-edge beyond, they were greeted by the fiery-orange glow of a shining orb setting into the reflective ocean horizon. The surface of the water shimmered like shards of glass moving in the warm late-evening wind. Dusk fell behind them, as the two sat, dangling their feet off the cliffside.

Lucrecia had kicked off her shoes once on top of the plateau, and Vincent had shed his tie and jacket. The silence they shared was deep and meaningful, a thousand thoughts passing across the space between them without a an eye being turned, or a single word being spoken.

As the sun dipped below the distant waters, the blaze of the ocean turned into a mere dance of tiny embers. He drew his arm around her shoulders, and allowed her to lean into him. Night fell, and the stars came out. She looked up to him, questions surfacing behind the once-again present glass-barrier before her eyes.

"We shouldn't do this again..." she mumbled regretfully, "The first time..."

"The first time, he had a reason to get angry." Vincent said, reading her thoughts, "But this time he's let you have the whole week off, he can't decide what you do, when you return, and where you spend your time," he assured her, giving her shoulders a slight squeeze, "...or with whom."

She sighed, "I suppose you're right," she admitted, "Was that thunder?" she asked, looking around for the source of the dull booming that she heard.

"No, it's clear... there's no clouds, so it couldn't be a storm." Vincent said, he too now searching, after having glimpsed a flash of light.

Then there it was again, another booming sound, but this time from a clear direction. The two turned their heads the same way, and saw, rising over the rocks and the trees, a golden stream of light. It sparked, flickered, stalled in the air, then disappeared, before moments later bursting into a million yellow lights. The sound delay caused the resulting explosion to reach thier ears just before a second green sunburst lit the sky.

"Fireworks from the Gold Saucer..." Lucrecia said. Vincent nodded.

The two sat there and watched the show until the finale, when the Western sky lit up in a rainbow of colored sparks flying about, and a steady drumbeat of their noises echoing over the mountainsides, and lingering until after the lights ceased. Their silence of understanding continued beyond even this, even as the moon rose and swathed them in chill, silver light.

A new kind of fireworks began, a mid-autumn meteor shower, as little pinpricks of light went streaking through the sky. Lucrecia and Vincent's eyes were now focused upward, as they watched the heaven's own natural display, it's timing so exact that it was almost as if it was trying to outdo the manmade show.

"These are better than the ones from the Gold Saucer" the girl breathed more than an hour later, once the storm had slowly subsided, and the frosty night air had completely settled over the sunbaked rock. Vincent nodded in agreement, his eyes still tracing the occasional speck as it tore a hole in the blackness.

"Did you make a wish?" she asked after his silence, leaning a little more heavily on him.

"Yes I did." the Turk replied.

Lucrecia yawned, and shivered, her eyes drooping. So Vincent pulled over his jacket, placing it around her. She looked up with a thankful smile as they leaned backward. The gunman gently lay her onto the hard ground, cushioning her head with his arm, he gently embraced her, and she nuzzled into his neck.

The Turk smiled as he felt her warm breath steady on his skin. Henow knew what exactly he was going to do...and was surer than ever that it was going to work. He craned his neck forward, and blew her bangs away before placing a gentle kiss on her forehead, and whispering softly in her ear, "I love you."

xxx

**Author's Ending Note Thingy: **Yay! Finally a new chapter! It's been since... well, it's been about four days since I've gotten a chance to type. I had this all written out in my little fanfic notebook, and about half of the next chapter... but now I have to go back and edit! Oh boy! So yeah... you may or may not have noticed, but the sun apparently sets in three different directions on any given day on this planet! Oh boy! XD


	12. Chapter 12

The sun rose high and bright the next day. Vincent woke with a slight shiver, opening his eyes and squinting in the dawn light.

Lucrecia still slumbered peacefully, pressed up to his side for warmth. Vincent relished in the feeling of her body so beautifully entwined with his own, in the rising and falling sensation of when she breathed, and the sense of security there was for him by being encircled in the girl's arms.

He shifted to face her more completely, and tangled his fingers through her long wavy hair. It was soft, and always smelled like raspberries.

The Turk was content to wait like that, there, for as long as it took for her to wake. It didn't take long.

She sighed, and nestled closer, tightening her grip around his waist, "Good morning, Vincent," the girl said, muffled from talking directly into his chest.

"Good morning." he responded, stroking her hair and face lovingly, "I hope you slept well out here."

"Mm..." she confirmed, "Like a baby... there's something about the outdoors' air... I took your jacket, though, I hope you weren't cold."

"No."

He sat up slowly, and Lucrecia soon followed suit, stretching and shouldering off the jacket, handing it to him.

Vincent pulled it back on, and turned to her, "Are you ready to leave?" he asked her.

She sat on the ledge, the gentle wind playing with her clothes and whistling in the valleys below, silent for a moment before she answered, "Yes, I think so."

"All right, just let me find my tie..." Vincent said, bending to search the ground for it. As he picked it up, Lucrecia made an odd noise, and said:

"Oh, you must be kidding me..."

He turned around, while knotting the thin piece of fabric back in place around his neck, "What is it?" he asked.

Lucrecia looked up from where she'd been staring over the edge of the cliff, and pointed down, "Look..." she mumbled miserably, as Vincent walked over. He stared over the edge... a skilled eye immediately spotting two out-of-place white specks on the ground, down, far, far below.

"Are those..."

"...my shoes." Lucrecia frowned, "They must've fallen down somehow..."

Vincent looked puzzled for a while, but had soon found himself unable to suppress a quiet laugh, which soon began growing louder.

"Vincent!" she turned abruptly to him, an astonished look on her flushing face, "It's not funny! Now how am I going to get back down?" she stared at the slope behind them, and the faraway van below. "This terrain is much rougher than the mountains of Nibelheim, and I barely managed _that_ one barefoot!"

Vincent's laugh had slowly subsided to a mere smirk, as he said matter-of-factly, "I'll carry you, then."

"_What?_"

"I'll carry you!"

She laughed too, now, "Vincent, no!"

He shrugged, walking over, and standing, looming above her, "Why not?"

"Because I'd... I'd weigh you down..." she blushed.

"Nonsense, I don't think so..." he said softly, standing over her, and in one fluid motion, scooping her up off the ground, into his arms.

With a startled yelp, her hands reflexively flew around the man's neck, hooking there for support in keeping herself upright. "Vincent, you can't!" she breathed, but he was already on the way down, and there was nothing to be done about it, other than hang there and wait to be delivered to the ground.

As the two progressed down, out of the mountains, the sun rose higher in the sky, and rivers of ethereal mist followed their footsteps down the hill, forced into the cooler, lower altitudes, and under shadow. It cloaked their movements and shrouded their steps, hovering around them as they descended.

It wasn't long before they were both at the bottom. Lucrecia was light, so Vincent was, thankfully, able to carry her to the bottom without much difficulty, despite his svelte build. Vincent was much grateful for that, it would've been absolutely humiliating, and painful, for Lucrecia, if he'd dropped her.

She slowly touched down, bare feet on warm sand, and Vincent opened the door of the van for her. She stepped into the seat, muttering an embarrassed, "Thanks," while trying to hide her pink-tinged face behind her hair.

Vincent smiled warmly, "Don't mention it."

She looked up, and just caught a glimpse of that smile, before he started to turn away. Working on impulse alone, she grabbed ahold of his sleeve. He stopped, and she slowly pulled him in, giving a soft peck of the cheek before letting go.

Blushing as well by now, Vincent turned away again, closing the door behind him, and hurrying to the driver's seat of the car. An hour's awkward silence driving and they were home.

Lucrecia set about busying herself with something other than being with Vincent, of which he actually didn't mind this time. He returned to his room to change out of the clothes he'd been a day and a night in already. Upon reaching it, he found the rose that Lucrecia had kept from their date... someone had watered the little wilting flower, the life-giving liquid still visible in the vase, in their absence, so that it had once again begun to flourish and bloom. This made the Turk smile.

He didn't pause for long. Vincent switched uniforms, then headed straight out into town again, his wallet in his hand. He didn't spend on much very often, so he had quite the collection of bills... and today, he had an agenda, and a necessary meeting with Mr. Strife down at the jewelery store.

It was Sunday evening before anybody knew it. The night before Lucrecia was supposed to report to Hojo with her answer. It was due first thing the next morning.

Vincent was lounging in the entrance hall, sitting sideways in one of the squishy, dust-coated chairs. His heart was beating as fast as it would if he'd just been running, and he struggled to keep his nerves down. The tension and anticipation of the unanswered question had been building in him all week… he wanted to know, he _needed_ to know…

Luckily for him, it was that moment that the girl came striding out of the library, and towards him. Vincent twitched, a little startled, and hastily hid away the little box he'd been constantly turning over in his hands.

She stopped in front of him, smiling gently, "Vincent, I need to talk to you about something..." she said cryptically, and soft.

Vincent knew what it was... it couldn't possibly be anything else. He leapt from his chair obediantly, and stood at her side, waiting for further instruction.

"Come with me..." she sighed, turning towards the front door, and starting off towards it. Once again, Vincent silently followed. She led him down the narrow streets, and past the well, only slowing, and stopping at the very edge of the town. She stood there, staring out at the hills, before turning slowly to him.

"I've... made my decision." she reported.

He nodded slowly, taking a step closer. He said nothing through his lips, he questioned further through his eyes.

"I'm... going to go through with the experiment. I'm going to stay."

Vincent nodded yet again. It wasn't exactly a sigh of relief... yet. He put on a little smile, with the help of nervous anticipation, "I'm glad you've decided that..." he said.

She looked at him strangely, "But, Vincent... I thought you were completely against this... you do realize... that the... subjects will be fertilized by Hojo..." she said embarrasedly.

"But that's just it..." the smile was creeping farther, and becoming more true, "I've thought of a way around that, Lucrecia..."

"But you can't tell Hojo not to use his own..." she stopped, her face pinking, "...it's not your place." she added softly, "That's entirely his right, especially once I agree to the experiment."

"It's entirely his right, yes, but it's entirely mine under one condition..."

Lucrecia watched him puzzled, but the look didn't linger for long, as Vincent reached out, and gently took her left hand.

His gaze was unbreaking, and fell on her face, locked with her eyes in an almost hypnotizing stare.Looking up with such reverance as one would look upon a god, he lowered himself carefully down onto one knee... he slipped the small box from his back pocket with his free hand, and flipped it open. Inside, cushioned by a pillow of black velvet, and held upright by a small slit in it, was a beautiful, dark golden band, wide, but not thick. It looked very delicate, and the well-cut aquamarine jewel in the center sparkled, and glowed with a strange light.

Lucrecia gasped, and Vincent still smiled, "It's made from the mako-crystals in the cave we found just outside in the mountains..." he explained, "I thought you'd like it..." he was beginning to lose his nerve, but he fought to get it back... too late to wimp-out now: "I... Lucrecia, I love you..." he said simply, "And I thought this way... if we were together like this, that I could be the one..." his eyes, which had fallen to her feet during the time he'd been describing the origins of the jewel, now rose back up to her, "I could be the one to give you your child... instead of Hojo. If we were married, he couldn't stop us."

Her eyes were wide, and her mouth moved up and down silently, no words coming out. Vincent continued: "Lucrecia, will you... will you marry me?"

She put a hand over her mouth, closing her lips beneath. The silence lasted longer than Vincent had expected it to... her eyes teared up, then spilled over... her shoulders shook, and her hand moved to cover her whole face, as her head hung, "Vincent... I... no..."

His smile disappeared, replaced by a look of disbelief and disorientation... his hand shrunk back from hers a little, but he continued to look up from his knees.

"Vincent, would you really consent to letting our child get experimented on? It would be too complicated for you and I... and even if Hojo was still the one to... no, it wouldn't work." she desperately tried to explain something rational through her sobs, "I... I just can't do it!" Roughly she pulled her hand away from his, taking a few quick steps back.

Dumbstruck, Vincent rose slowly to a standing position again, clipping the box shut with one hand. He watched her with wide pleading eyes... why did she do this...? He thought... didn't she...?

"I'm sorry, Vincent... I'm so sorry." she sputtered, turning from him, and swiftly running-stumbling back up the street toward the mansion.

The Turk stood there alone, watching her go for a long, long time... even until after she disappeared back into the shadowwy mansion. His mind was curiously blank of thoughts, his face strangely blank of emotion. He slowly put the ring away. The sun was setting on Nibelheim, the day was giving way to night.

It was a long time before hefound the will orthe reason to go back inside, and when he returned to his darkened room, he found it empty. Lucrecia was not there. As he sunk below the blankets on his bed, he noticed the rose again, for the first time since he and her had gotten back from thier little excursion to Cosmo Canyon, it's head was hanging down, having finally withered and completely died.

xxx

**Author's Ending Note Thingy: **So I think this is kinda short... but... this is a good place to end it. I see two more chapters in this story's future... but I'm pretty sure I've said that before... XD Oh well! We'll see. It ends when it ends.


	13. Chapter 13

It was a kind of pain Vincent hadn't ever felt before, when Hojo appeared at mealtime the next day with that smug smile on his face. He knew she had told him. Lucrecia was there too, but Vincent made no attempt to make contact with her. He needed to... not be around her how. As time passed on, he found himself capable of understanding why she'd made this choice... after all, she barely knew him... and she may have been working with Hojo for long before they ever met. Not to mention she idolized him...

Still, he'd regressed. He was infinitely more quiet than ever, and to him, all the food tasted bitter... but maybe it was just past it's expiration date.

October was ending, Indian summer had passed, it was getting cold. Not many days, he was alerted to someone leaving the mansion by a cool gust of air that brushed past him, sweeping through the house from the front door, and he heard it click shut.

Halfheartedly closing his book, he decided to go and investigate... he left it sitting open on a small table in the library, and walked over to look out. From behind the dusty windowpanes, he looked out at two figured walking down the road.

"Lucrecia..." the word slipped past his lips, the first he'd spoken in quite a while.

Sneaking out of the door himself, he shadowed them at a safe distance, until they stopped... in the very same spot at the gate where he had proposed. Ducking behind buildings, he proceeded forward until within earshot... they'd been talking to eachother the whole time, but only now could he make out the words.

"And you're positive you want to go through with this?" Hojo said.

"I'm positive." Lucrecia responded.

"What about that Turk? You're not afraid, or reluctant to leave him behind, are you?"

Vincent tensed at that... leave him behind? Where they going somewhere? He wanted to look... but resisted the urge, instead staying stubbornly in place.

"We're not going anywhere, Hojo... but if you mean, am I willing to let him go, then..." she paused, "...yes. For the sake of science... yes."

"Then he was opposed to you taking this course?" Hojo further questioned.

"Yes, but the discoveries we could make matter more to me... than him."

Vincent didn't want to hear, didn't want to listen... but it was like watching a train wreck... an experience he'd actually had back in Midgar... it was horrible, a screeching, flaming mass of twisted metal tearing down the tracks... awful, yet one of those situations where you just couldn't look away, couldn't stop listening.

"I'm glad you've decided this," Hojo said soothingly, "And... I have an offer to make you, because of it."

Lucrecia was silent. At this point, Vincent could quell is curiosity no more. Slowly, he turned, just barely peeking past the side of the house he hid behind. The two of them were standing at the gate, Hojo's back was to him, and Lucrecia stood a few feet away from the scientist, watching with a look of half-curiosity.

"I thought that you might consider it somewhat... awkward..." Hojo started, "If we were to create a child together, and not be... otherwise bound." Lucrecia's eyes widened marginally in that oh-no-not-again way.

"So then, Lu..." Vincent felt himself go cold as the scientist, in mirror-actions, also bent to one knee, taking out a little box, just as he had done, "...will you marry me?"

A silence followed, the Turk's gaze was unbreaking from Lucrecia's face. She seemed to be in deep thought, concentrating... her eyebrows were furrowed, her lips pressed together slightly, and she stared directly down at the ring in the little box. He couldn't see it himself, but doubted it was as beautiful as Lucrecia deserved.

Finally, though, a weak voice said, "I... I'll do it."

Vincent looked up sharply, feeling a sudden weakness as every bit of hope in him simply sank, he saw Hojo stand, and a flash of his profile, lips curling into a smile as he took out the ring, and gently pushed it onto Lucrecia's finger. He looked at her, and she too, smiled very slightly. A moment passed before the two, almost simultaneously embraced eachother.

The Turk could say nothing, could do nothing... it all made perfect sense. The two of them had the same profession, worked together on the same project, would soon be having a child. They were the perfect match, while he and Lucrecia... simply were not.

He turned around again, and slowly got up. It was the hardest thing in the world to do right then, walk away. He didn't even worry about not being seen anymore, simply walking straight up the hill behind the houses. Halfway up, he turned around... the two were still hugging down at the bottom, rocking back and fourth slightly, in place. He sighed, "Well, if... if she is happy then... I don't mind."

It was days before he so much as looked at Lucrecia again. After she'd gotten home that fateful day, she made some feeble attempts at talking to him, which he all but ignored... this worried the girl, but there was nothing she could do about it. Vincent was merely trying not to look at the new ring on her finger, a silver band with a clear sparkling diamond. It didn't fit her well.

Finally, after silent treatment for almost a week, which in the latter days, Lucrecia had learned not to even bother trying to break, she sat down on her bed, across from his own, where he was reading a book.

"I know you can hear me, Vincent, even if you're not going to respond..." she started, "The testing will begin in two days... in two days, I'll be... with Hojo's child." his head hung slightly at this news, and she sighed, quiet for a moment, before switching over to sit by him on his bed. He tensed slightly at that.

"I know you're upset that I couldn't... be with you. And I realize that by know you probably know I'm engaged to Hojo. We're going to be married after the experiment is complete." she seemed to smile a little at this thought, Vincent observed from the corner of his eye, "You're a bright person, Vincent, so I'll save you the explanation as to why I did it... you probably already know."

His head hung a little more at that. Yes... yes he did know, and it was eating him up inside... such a small, seemingly trivial aspect of his life was all that kept him and her apart. Maybe if he'd gone into his dad's business, science, instead of running off and becoming a Turk... maybe. Maybe it would be him whose ring would now be on Lucrecia's finger. He turned his wandering eyes away from it. But then... he wouldn't have the heart to _experiment_ on her. He didn't know how Hojo could stomach it.

"I'm sorry Vincent, I do love you, it's just... better this way."

He looked up, eyes wide as he stared at her. What had she just said? He'd never heard her say that before... he hadn't even said it to her face.

"If you love me..." he said, his voice a cracked whisper, "Then why...?"

She looked on him sadly, as the book dropped from his hands, and the gunman shifted in his bed, to draw his arms around her waist, and put his head in her lap. She didn't seem the least bit startled by this. He bit down hard on his lips, to keep any sound from escaping them as he cried... hot tears fell down his face. He felt them tickle his skin... it was a disgusting sensation... the sticky wetness plastering his hair to his cheeks. Lucrecia spared him from that, gently brushing his bangs out of the way.

She gently shushed him, and in a moment began to hum something, softly, beneath her breath. Lulling him as if he were a child... she would be a good mother, he then decided, to anyone's baby. His eyes closed, as she dabbed the tears off his face with a white, lacy handkerchief.

It was the first time he cried.

xxx

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** Wow, poor, poor Vincent... this chapter's gonna get some interesting reviews, I hope! - Aaanyway... just a note of what's on the horizon. It's Final's Week for me at my school, so... unless I finish another chappie by tonight, or tomorrow, there's not gonna be any more for about a week and a half. Sorry!


	14. Chapter 14

Vincent had only been temporarily disheartened during the period of Lucrecia's rejection of him, and acceptance of Hojo, but once he was over it, namely, after the night where he fell asleep in Lucrecia's lap, his vehemence to stop the experiments just as fiery as before.

He wouldn't go to Lucrecia again... he'd tried that tactic, and it didn't work. She was willing to give him up for science, she would not be willing to give science up for nothing in return.

So Hojo was the only choice left. Vincent knew that it was probably already a lost cause, even as he conceived the idea... but he had to try it. Had to for Lucrecia's sake...

He woke up the next morning with these ideas in his head. Lucrecia was already gone. When did she say the new experiments would start? Two days, he thought... that meant he had that much time to convince Hojo not to do what he was doing. Quite a task considering that he had 48 hours to get a stubborn man, who hated his guts, to give up his life's pursuit.

Later that day, he made his way down the steps to the basement, walking decisively into the lab. Lucrecia and Hojo, who'd been examining something on the other side of the room started as the door opened, and spun around.

"You!" Hojo spat, "What are you doing here, Turk! You're not allowed in this room."

Damnit... he hadn't counted on Lucrecia being there... "I'm here opposing your work, Hojo." Vincent stated plainly. Lucrecia watched him with pleading eyes, begging him to go away... disbelief was evident on her face, why was he down here?

"Oh?" Hojo said, hands on his hips and an eyebrow raised, "What are you going to do about it, Turk?"

"As a ShinRa operative, I am obligated to report to them on anything interesting, or otherwise suspicious that I observe during my stay here." Vincent explained, "I'll be sure not to leave this out of my next check-in with headquarters. They'll be very interested to know how this twisted experiment has progressed."

Hojo gave an over-loud laugh, "ShinRa already knows all about my experiment, AND where I plan to go with it! They've already given me the O.K. on Project Jenova."

Vincent grit his teeth together, "You mean to say ShinRa is actually supporting this kind of work?"

"With all the money in their pockets." Said Hojo haughtily.

"Then I'll tell the rest of the world!" Vincent gestured behind them, "How do you think the people in this little town would like it to know that under their very feet you're using human guinea pigs for your research!"

Hojo laughed again, "If anyone finds out about it, ShinRa shock troops will surely put an end to the public outcry."

"They can't kill everyone in the whole world!" The Turk spat ferociously.

"Not everyone in the whole world would be as opposed to it as you are, Valentine, if they even find out about it. Don't think for a second that because this little flower means something to you, that it qualifies her as something greater, and above all other humans. ShinRa doesn't hold her in such favoritism as you do."

Lucrecia's shoulders sunk minorly at that. A fist collided violently with a nearby bookshelf, sending some of the scientific volumes and work-journals toppling off it to the stone floor, "Shut up!" Vincent growled, "It wouldn't matter if it wasn't her, it's still wrong to do this, any of this, you know that!"

"She's also free to make her _own_ decisions..." the scientist continued, unphased, "...and she's chosen science over ethics, ME over YOU." he stabbed his finger in the air, pointing almost accusingly at the Turk.

Vincent's eyes softened as he looked at Lucrecia. She kept her gaze strictly on the floor, not looking at either Vincent or Hojo.

"And one such as you sure has a hell of a lot of gut trying to talk to me about the value of human life." Hojo said, a rage bubbling up in his tone, "A filthy Turk-assassin like you, to a high-ranking, respected expert as I am."

"Gast and my father were experts." Vincent looked up angrily, "They knew their limits and boundaries, they knew when to call it quits." he stood a little straighter now, "It doesn't matter what _my_ profession is, where you're going with yours is much more dangerous. I am against it! Why human experimentation!"

"She and I are both scientists!" he gestured wildly, "You have no power to do anything to us, Vincent Valentine, you are a pawn of the ShinRa elite. You are here to, as both you and I said before, keep the townspeople in line if they try to dig into our little mystery any more than they should. Lucrecia and I have decided together to go through with this, and ShinRa as well gives us their support." he drew an arm around the woman, but she didn't react, "You're just bitter because you didn't get the girl, Vincent." he sneered, "Not that it would have been allowed, anyway. A scientist and a Turk!" he scoffed.

Vincent's fists clenched together again. The inside of his glove was wet where he'd hit the shelf, and the brittle wood had splintered, pierced the leather, and scratched his skin. His eyes narrowed, and he exhaled a slow, shuddering breath, trying to calm down his fury. "If you hurt her, Hojo, I swear..."

"What are you going to do? Shoot me with your little antique gun?" Hojo laughed, motioning to the firearm at his hip. "But that would get you fired, if not executed... and it would make you a murderer then, now wouldn't it? Ah, but I suppose that's not much of a threat... because you already are." he looked at Lucrecia, shrinking away in his arms, "Who could love a monster like you?"

Shooting him didn't sound like such a bad idea, Vincent thought. His hand was already halfway to the holster, when he caught himself. He needed to get out of here, before he did something seriously stupid, or further destroyed his chances of saving Lucrecia... that's what he was doing, what he had to do. He was going to save her.

The Turk turned for the door, slamming it behind him as he walked swiftly down the hall outside. That scientist was intolerable... and shameless and stubborn to boot. There would be no reasoning with him, Vincent already knew that. Still... he had to try.

Lucrecia was right... even if she had agreed to marry him, he would've been doubly opposed to experimentation on his own child, if not opposed at all to the creation of that child. It was a lose-lose situation, because even though he had no qualms with Hojo experimenting on his own child, he didn't want Hojo experimenting on Lucrecia's... So it was really the very fact that Hojo and Lucrecia were having a child together that angered him, but he couldn't present that as his argument, because it was not only selfish, but it was Hojo's right, now that they were to be married. That god-forsaken scientist had seen past all the barriers, and overcome them. He really was powerless all on his own.

Lucrecia made herself continually absent whenever Vincent was around the next day, which wasn't much. The Turk had decided not to do anything at all... especially not confront Hojo again. Nothing held his attention anymore, not his flute, not his gun, not the hundreds and hundreds of books in the library he still hadn't read yet. He was singularly focused on the task of Hojo's experiment, the accursed Jenova Project.

He had to stop it... the more he thought about it, the more the very feel of the experiment was beginning to sicken him. It was like a superstition, a little trivial worry spiraled out of control, a mountain made out of a molehill. Vincent still had a firm enough grip on things to be able to see how this ominous feeling could just be reading in between the lines too much, the outcome of his mind trying to otherwise justify the hatred he felt towards Hojo right now... but his grip had loosened enough so that this realization no longer mattered. He would stop it at all costs.

The Turk turned in early that night, with the intention of getting up extra early the next morning, before Lucrecia did. And this, he managed.

Silently, as to not wake the sleeping girl, he pulled on his Turk regalia, and with the gun strapped to his side, proceeded out of his room, and down the stairs, into the basement. Calmly, he walked down the hall, and opened the door, to find Hojo hurriedly working, just where he'd expected to find the scientist. It was later this day that Lucrecia was scheduled to be impregnated, and he could already see the equipment to do so that Hojo had already set up.

The scientist turned around to see Vincent there, looming in the doorway. He jumped slightly, startled, then quickly regained his composure, slapping that superior look onto his face as he gazed upon the Turk. "What do you want here, Valentine?" he growled, continuing about straightening the things on the shelf near him, and finding better places for a few things he had in his hands.

"You know why I'm here, Hojo..." Vincent said, voice soft and under control. At this point, he would beg on bended knees just to stop Hojo...

The scientist wiped his hands off on a cloth, tossing the scrap into a nearby wastebin as he moved toward the Turk, hands in his pockets, "Yes, I think I do... you're here to try and reason with me, convince me to stop my project. But after that outburst of yours the day before yesterday..." he glanced at the shattered bookshelf, still not repaired, though the books had been moved to another place, "I doubt you'll be able to keep a control on that temper of yours for long." he smirked, "But go on and humor me."

Vincent took a deep breath, indeed, the scientist was right... his nerves were already being tried by the grating personality of the man... but he was just itching to prove himself better than that.

He stepped up, and held his arms out to the sides, "What do I need to do? What will make you stop?" he asked, "Money? Power?"

"You can't give me that!" Hojo laughed, "A lowly orphan Turk like you... you're dirt poor, boy, and at the bottom of the stack as far as influence goes."

Vincent narrowed his eyes, "Then is there anything _else_ I can do for you?"

Hojo laughed, "Well, actually..." he turned his eyes to a tray of little sample vials across the room, a look shining in them the likes of which Vincent had never seen before... he did appear truly like a mad scientist when he looked that way.

"What?" Vincent pressed... if he was near a breakthrough with this crazy man, it would surely be the greatest accomplishment of his whole life. He took a glance over to whatever Hojo was looking at... that proved to be all the scientist needed.

In a swift, fluid motion, he'd lunged forward, reaching out for the Turk... Vincent saw the motion just in time, sidestepped, gasped, and pushed the scientist away, but it was already too late.

A shot rang out, echoing painfully loud off the rock walls: Vincent stared up, wide-eyed... Quicksilver was resting easily in Hojo's hand, a wisp of smoke curling up from the tip of the barrel... It had been pulled from it's holster, and he hadn't even noticed it. The sharp, molten pain spreading through his left arm alerted him to what the scientist had done.

"You may not have known it..." Hojo said, moving in on the wounded Turk, and pushing him down with surprising force, so that Vincent was practically doubled over, and at the scientist's mercy, "But that threat of 'telling the world' about my little experiment... well that just struck a little too close to home for me." he smiled sadly, replacing the gun in Vincent's empty holster, and reaching back into his pocket.

"ShinRa is merciless, and has nothing against sacrificing a little lamb like Lucrecia... but the rest of the world..." he grimaced, "...is not so progressive in their thought." pulling his hand back out of his pocket, he produced a little syringe, filled with some mystery liquid, and as Vincent was struggling to stand up straight again, shoved the needle into his neck.

"Ahh..." Vincent protested, wriggling to try and get away.

"No, no... I wouldn't do that, Valentine, you'll break the needle, and cause yourself more injury..." Hojo cooed smoothly, with a voice like poisoned honey. All in the matter of a few moments, Vincent had learned how much to fear that voice... what would happen to him now? He'd failed Lucrecia... would he even ever see her again? These thoughts passed through the Turk's head, as his vision blurred over, and he passed off into darkness.

xxx

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** MWAHAHAHA! NOW THE FUN BEGINS! sadistic I love torturing my characters... not that Vincent's mine... but he is in this story! Uhm... warning of possible gore ahead? I don't even know what's coming until I write it... this entire story was only ever a concept in my head of: I need to tell what I think happened, but I never actually had one bit of it planned out. XP I'm just special like that.


	15. Chapter 15

From then forward, time was a blur... at no point did Vincent have any semblance of an idea of how much of it had passed. The tranquilizer that Hojo had given him was long-lasting, if not entirely thorough... he found himself drifting in and out of semi-consciousness.

The first thing he became aware of, his mind slowly began to guess, must have occurred not much later that day. As he slowly faded into reality, he felt the touch of cold shackles on his ankles and wrists. He was laid out on some sort of hard surface, an operating table, perhaps, but at an odd angle, semi-upright, leaning just enough so that the force of gravity kept his body supine on top of the table, not relying on the restraints to keep him from sliding off. And gravity proved to be enough to keep his tired muscles from being able to lift him.

He heard the door creak open, what might have been a gasp, a scuffle, and a shrieking voice.

"Vincent, Vincent!"

"No! What are you doing to him?"

"Calm down, my-"

"No! Get off me! I... no!"

He didn't see a thing... his vision never cleared. Either that, or he was unable to find the strength even to lift his eyelids. His hearing faded in and out... and that was all he heard for a while. Later, god only knew how much later, he heard a soft weeping a ways away... it was Lucrecia, the voice was unmistakable... the sound of her crying, that he never wanted to hear again...

He forced himself into a higher level of consciousness, and managed to part his lips to take a breath... up until now, it had only been a slow, steady breathing in through his nostrils, that didn't take in nearly enough oxygen to satisfy an alert, or semi-alert mind... it was as if his body were sleeping while his thoughts and senses were awake.

After a few raspy breaths, he heard the sobbing quieting slightly... no... he didn't want her to go away... he called out, or tried to call out her name, "Lu... Lu..."

There was a wet gasp, "Vincent?"

He didn't hear anything after that. When he came to again, even if barely so, it was to his own body being shifted... rough, course hands were grabbing ahold of him in various places, and stripping off his clothes unceremoniously... he heard the flop of fabric on the floor, and felt buttons being popped as his shirt was ripped off of him, and various other things were torn away.

This couldn't be Lucrecia... not that he thought Lucrecia would do this to him anyway... her hands didn't feel like that. It was Hojo, and he had to fight back, had to find a way to stop him... but even as he felt Hojo shoving his limbs back into place, and heard the metal of the shackles clicking shut again, Vincent couldn't bring himself to move...

He winced a little, making a strangled noise in his throat, in an attempt to talk, and that got Hojo's attention... the unwanted, ungentle touches stopped, and the scientist snorted.

"So, almost awake are we?" he asked, "It'll be another dose of that tranquilizer for you..." he muttered.

Vincent felt a sharp pain in his neck, just as he had the first time, when he'd been shot, and things began to fade again... distantly, he thought he heard a pounding on a door, but he wasn't positive.

The next time he 'awoke' it was to Hojo's voice, humming an ironically upbeat tune... muffled noises were also coming from somewhere in the room. Clinkings of instruments being moved around, tested, maybe even used on someone, from the way the pattern of machinery and human noises could be deciphered, all while he began to murmur under his breath, to that same chiding tune...

"First priorities first... girl, then the boy..."

Velcro straps were being strained against, the whiplike sounds of wires and tubing hitting the ground echoed quietly... Hojo just kept humming the tune. The peeling sound of tape coming off something sounded next, and Lucrecia heaved a breath.

"Hojo, why!" a hoarse, wavering voice, on the edge of tears said, "I would've gone with you willingly... but you hurt... Vincent, why? He wasn't a threat to you!"

"On the contrary..." the scientist's voice had come closer. There was silence, "Oh, look, he's almost woken up..."

Indeed, Vincent had now found the strength not only to open his mouth and breathe, but to crack his eyes, peering out from beneath the drooping lids, and bushy black eyelashes, he saw the distorted form of Hojo grinning predatorily at him... baring his teeth threateningly. The Turk's head lolled to one side... he saw his bare skin, covered only by dried blood... how many days had the wound been there? It wasn't wrapped, or tended to at all... but due to the sterile laboratory environment, it was also not infected. He could still feel the uncomfortable sensation of a foreign object within it: the bullet.

He groaned softly... he was cold. His clothes were over there on the ground, he could see them just barely well enough to recognize them as his own. Eyes scanning the room slowly, they could make out no more than a shadowy shape on an almost identical operating table that must have been Lucrecia.

"Hojo, let me go..." she pleaded, "Just put me back, I don't want to be here while you..." she trailed off, then added softly, "Please..."

The sadistic scientist merely laughed, "Oh, but it's more interesting that way... isn't it?" he grabbed the hair on the back of Vincent's head, pulling him up slightly straighter by it, "I'd say he's ready for phase one, don't you think? This has always interested me... to see how the Jenova viruses will work in humans."

"You wouldn't...!" Lucrecia breathed.

"I would. I've even... personalized them. Just for you, Valentine. You should feel honored and privileged... special." the scientist disappeared out of the dazed man's vision, returning a moment later with another syringe, filled with a blood-red serum.

"I exposed a few samples of the Jenova virus to some of the beast cells your father discovered and preserved, so that they'd take the same form as they did in creating those particular creatures." Hojo grinned, "Poor dead fool, Grimoire, it'll be like having a little bit of him back again, don't you think, Valentine?"

"Ugk-" Vincent gagged as he felt the thick instrument slide beneath the skin of his thigh, and a strange change in the circulation of his blood in that area as the virus swept through him. The discomfort leveled, the Turk no longer aware of the intruder within his body, until it reached the wound in his arm...

Oh so long ago, he'd forgotten to unload the silver bullets from his gun, the very gun Hojo had shot him with... they remained in the firearm up until then, and he imaged they were in it still, but why did they make it hurt?

"How do you like Galian?" Hojo's voice asked. Oh. That was why.

He felt a fever sweep his body from left to right, from the point of entry on the relatively small bullet wound, to all the places the virus was, until his bloodstream was entirely infested. The pain that came to him then, like a searing shockwave, throbbing out from the wound.

He felt his teeth would crack if he clenched them together any longer, so he opened up, releasing a long stored-away yell of pain, but he did not recognize the voice which escaped his lips... a bestial, completely inhuman roar bubbled up out of somewhere deep in his throat, emptying his lungs of air much faster than he'd expected it to. Between the new lack of oxygen, and the pain, he felt himself blacking out. He was aware of straining against his bonds, despite not having remembered commanding his limbs to do so. He heard Lucrecia scream.

"It's poison! It's poison to him! The bullet, the silver in his arm!" she was sharp... she'd caught onto it immediately... but what happened next, Vincent was oblivious to. His already feeble vision failed, and he saw only black.

When he came to, it was just barely... only enough to be aware of the soft voice nearby, and... something touching him. He felt himself jerk. As a reflex, his body recoiled, then struck out, but there was little he could do, restrained there as he was. Still, whoever was by him gave a start, a short yelp, and backed away, footsteps sliding on the dusty floor.

"Vincent, it's just me, Lucrecia, don't worry..." a voice said.

Slowly, Vincent felt his body calm down. Of course it was her... that touch belonged only to her hands... but why did her proximity make him so tense? He tried to open his eyes, but again, he couldn't. Instead, the Turk sated himself with just listening... and trying to decipher the strangest of feelings.

"I'm sorry, Vincent... I'm so sorry..." she said, her hand stroking his skin... but it felt different than normal.

"I can't help what Hojo's done to you... I couldn't stop him, and I'm sorry. I at least got him to save your life, but... at what cost?" the hand stopped, went away, and replaced itself on his upper arm. It felt smaller than usual... she was a woman, but he wasn't that much bigger than her, was he? She gently slid it down, until he couldn't feel it any longer, but he was sure his arm should be there...

"Maybe... it would've been better to let you die. If you're alive, he'll only keep doing these horrible things to you..." she sighed. "But you're not like that... you wouldn't want to die, would you?"

He wanted to react to that... she sounded so lost, so confused... he had to give her some solace in her decision. He tried to nod... his head felt so heavy... but he managed it, a mane of hair falling about his shoulders, and a huff of air escaping through his nose... it sounded like a bull snorting. And since when was his hair so long? How much time had passed anyway.

She almost laughed, "You're awake," she looked almost happy, "and here I thought I was talking to myself..."

Then he forced his eyes open, out of the need to see her... and saw himself. Bristly fur coated his skin, in an acidic, poisonous purple color. He saw red bangs in between his eyes. Smooth grey horns extended out far into his line of vision... there was a moment where his heart skipped a beat, then he wanted to shout out, to roar in rage and frustration. The virus... the virus had done this to him! Had turned him into Galian... He too had now become Hojo's labrat, he and Lucrecia both... and there was Lucrecia, hair mussed, face tearstained, but nevertheless, standing there, comforting him with her gentle touch. Her weary face seemed to light up more when she saw that he'd opened his eyes.

"There you are..." the girl softly said, continuing to pet his long, wolflike snout, "I'm so glad you're awake... does it hurt?"

Vincent instinctively looked to the bullet wound, turning his head slowly, to find that his arm was not there at all, instead, it ended at the elbow, in a bloody stump. His eyes went wider... something that had been scratching at the back of his mind, relatively unnoticed through this all, now found an opening: shock. It burst through, and he felt his body tense again, struggling against the chains. His teeth were clenched together, and another animalian growl escaped his throat.

Lucrecia looked sad again, "No... no, calm down, don't do this..." she begged. That voice made him stop, made the beast within closer to his full control. Now, once more, Vincent had the power.

She sighed, and slowly sat down at his feet. "I'm so tired... I haven't been sleeping well recently. Hojo's had me locked up in the crypt room, ever since I saw you... he won't let me go free." she leaned back on his muscled leg, moving her hand so that her fingers would work through the longer fur at his ankle, and gently touch the smooth hoof beneath. Vincent's teeth clenched at the thought of Hojo keeping Lucrecia caged like an animal, but the girl didn't notice, she instead continued. "But thanks to you and your flute-playing down there..." she looked up to him and produced the key to the room he had found in the vault, "I grabbed these out of your clothes... I snuck out to make sure you were alive... I wouldn't put it past him to let you die down here."

Vincent almost smiled, but he imagined it probably looked fairly intimidating in the form he was now in, as Lucrecia turned away, and pocketed the keys again. "I'll come again, if you want..." she offered.

In those words alone, all of Vincent's fears were washed away... the fact that she cared so much... so much about him to risk... who knows what to keep seeing him. He snorted again, and managed a nod. She smiled.

She had to leave then, walking out the door. He hated to see her go, and went back to letting his body hang limply from the chains. It wasn't long, in fact he didn't even go back to sleep, before he heard the door open again. This time, it was Hojo. He was tired, though... he didn't want to deal with the scientist now walking towards him with that triumphant smile, yet the hatred for him was still there. In his weakness, Vincent again felt his control slipping... Galian was taking over, and the Turk was perfectly all right with that. In that moment, Hojo frowned.

"What is it, Valentine, so weak you can't even keep in that inhuman _thing?_" he passed out of the line of sight, but kept on talking, "I, personally, think it rather reflects you..." before Vincent could see him again, that same piercing shot into his neck. Galian roared, "We'll not have that... I'm going to see how far I can push you..." and everything went black.


	16. Chapter 16

It had gotten colder recently. Vincent, in his naked body, now more than ever felt that. He had no idea how long it took for Galian to fade away... sometimes, he felt it still in him, that same scratching in the back of his head... but his body, by now, was more or less normal. Hojo had come in one or two times, as far as he remembered, to assess his progress in turning back. Lucrecia, too, often came, and he wasn't even embarrassed to be there, bare before her.

In the passing months after that, what he imagined was, winter evening where Hojo had remarked that his conversion back to a human form was complete, he'd come twice more with similar injections, more creatures Vincent's father had discovered: Gigas, then Hellmasker... both the changes were agonizing, and stressful on his body, but were never as horrible as the change to Galian was. Whether it was because Vincent had gotten used to the pain by now, or because neither of the latter two had the same severe allergic reaction to silver that Galian had experienced, he couldn't tell.

For Gigas, his body swelled, skin callousing over in places, and fur sprouting in others. The unforgiving metal binds didn't allow room for the huge growth of his limbs as he became the apelike monster, and he had to put up with the awful tightness at his wrists and ankles while he felt his extremities loosing blood circulation. The pressure eased slowly as he became human again.

For Hellmasker, his faced had bubbled and become almost metallic, and his body thinned, becoming yet more fragile, with strange armor-like bone plates just beneath the skin. Feeling the very structure of his insides changing so dramatically, much moreso than the other two forms had, was a constricting, awkward experience as bone-plate rubbed against bone-plate, cracking and grinding in the strange position in which he was kept. His stub of an arm extended into a mantis-like, serrated scythe, however, this form, too passed.

It was seldom that the scientist now let him slip into a consciousness that allowed him to do any more than catch snatches of conversation, or the occasional sensation on his skin, or in it, for that matter. He figured that it, and the extended periods of time between experiments on him were for a couple reasons. Tranquilizers, and long breaks in between injections allowed him to rest, and recuperate from the violent changes within his body. Also, when he was asleep, he couldn't struggle, or protest for the sake of himself, or Lucrecia...

It was one such occasion where he had actually gained a degree of awareness again that he heard the door slam open, and a screaming Lucrecia being dragged in. He couldn't decipher her words from a garbled stream of conversation. He heard her being shoved down onto the table, and the restraints being put in place. Her protests, however, didn't stop, as they usually would... Hojo was rough with her always, but never had he caused her such agony. Vincent struggled to open his eyes, but failed... lifting his head was equally in vain, he did however, manage to speak...

"Lucrecia..." his raspy, unused voice hissed out. The word wasn't heard over her screaming. Strapped to his table, he was forced to simply listen... finally, though, the reason behind all her pain was made evident. He heard a baby cry... Had nine months passed already? He absently wondered, while Lucrecia panted trying to regain her breath. Hojo was saying something he couldn't quite make out... he sounded triumphant, and impressed, proudly muttering something to them, Lucrecia and the new baby both as the two of them simultaneously cried.

"Sephiroth." he thought he heard, a half-gasped word from the girl, "Sephiroth..." she said it again.

"An excellent name." then footsteps.

"No... no... Sephiroth. Sephiroth!"

Footsteps still receding away, and a door closing farther away. Not the door to the hallway outside, the research lab connected to this one.

"Sephiroth! Sephiroth!" Weeping. Time passed, it was unclear how long.

Vincent woke again to the baby crying once more, the noise was far-off and muffled. It had been a long time since his last dose of tranquilizer, and the Turk regained consciousness almost as if from a deep sleep. In a moment his eyes were fully open, taking in his surroundings as he hadn't been able to for the past almost-year. Even before he'd been held captive down here, he hadn't seen the filthy lab this well.

It was a moment before he noticed what had woken him up in the first place. Lucrecia was here again. He'd been dimly aware of her visits after the very first, but due to the drugs, they were just blurry images, and strange sensations, and he didn't doubt that he'd also missed quite a few of them entirely. This time, he was able to talk to her, though...

"Lucrecia."

She looked up, and barely smiled. That slight motion plucked at his heartstrings. The fact that such a joyful girl was no longer able to perform such a simple action. And Hojo had aged her... not outwardly, her face was just as beautiful as always, hair just as brown, if not a little unkempt. But just looking into her eyes... he saw there things that one would normally only see in eyes with years and years more sights passed through them.

"They're red now." she said. He looked puzzled, and she pointed up at his face, "Your eyes... it must've been because of something Hojo did to you. Your eyes are red now. It's... beautiful."

Vincent, too, tried to smile, and she looked down sadly. Neither of them had tears left to shed, not even for one another. The baby called Sephiroth continued to cry, the noise coming down from the research laboratory. The silence was golden... until Hojo broke it.

"I knew you were sneaking in here!" He yelled, bursting through the door. Lucrecia gasped, and stood up, "You accursed little girl, I knew you were coming to see him! He'll pay for your actions..."

"What?" asked Lucrecia bewildered, stepping forward, in front of Vincent.

"Lucrecia, no..."

Hojo walked up to her, briskly pushing the girl to the floor, out of his way.

"Lucrecia!"

The scientist went over to the counter where Vincent had come to learn the samples were kept. He returned with yet another syringe... Vincent had learned to hate needles over the time he was down there. This was filled with a purple liquid, and by the crazed expression on Hojo's face, this transformation would be...

"No!" a screech broke Vincent's train of thought, "No, you _can't_ give that to him!" she was struggling to her feet.

"Oh, why not? I think seeing this boy's reaction to the _Cruentus Hasta Ab Ocasus_ will be quite interesting... in fact, the most informative yet.

"CHAOS will _kill_ him, Hojo!" She was standing on the other side of Vincent now.

"Precisely," he whispered, lowering the needle down over Vincent's leg.

"No!"

Vincent closed his eyes in anticipation for what seemed like was going to be his final shot. All it did, in fact, was cause him to miss a different kind of shot. A rifle went off in the tiny chamber. He looked out again, and there was little Lucrecia toting a very big gun... he recognized as the one that mechanic Daishin had been working on... he read the gold plaque on the side, 'Death Penalty'. Well, it was what Hojo deserved...

The scientist, however, had gotten lucky with that one... Lucrecia was tired, and inexperienced, and she'd managed only to maim him, a smoking bullet shell visible in his bleeding foot. Still, in that moment, he faltered, and the little needle full of purple went flying in the air.

Lurching forward, Lucrecia caught it.

"Damn you, girl!" Hojo growled, rounding in on her. She backed up, and looked to Vincent helplessly.

He looked back. "Run, Lucrecia." he whispered, and her eyes widened, "RUN!"

As Hojo limped forward, she obeyed, turning heel, and with her dirtied lab coat flying behind her, taking off down the hall with gun, and CHAOS in hand.

Vincent couldn't help a smirk, as Hojo, leaning against a counter top, panted heavily, and swore beneath his breath. It wasn't long before the scientist turned his hateful gaze on the Turk. "You'll pay for that..." he heard the man hoarsely say, while lifting up what looked like an at least semi-important piece of piping. Vincent winced prematurely as it was raised above his head, and blacked out as it was brought down.

He awoke, lying on the cold ground of the coffin chamber. The first thing he became aware of, was a heat at the end of his arm, the one that shouldn't be there. He opened his eyes and looked down at it, from between dense, flowing bangs. His hair had gotten much longer during his extended stay in the basement... An overlarge, brazen claw was there, extending out from his elbow, where he saw wired running into his skin, like stitches around a wound. It was Kedris' robotic arm, he recognized it immediately... sitting up slowly, he tried to move the fingers, and they did so fluidly, more humanlike than he'd expected them to be.

Looking around the chamber from where he lay, he saw a small pile of black and red over by his feet, along with Lucrecia's boots, the brown ones she had given him. Sliding wearily over, his body feeling heavy from cold, and a long time of having not used it, he found his Class A Turk Uniform, and slowly unfolded it. He stood shakily, going through the motions of getting himself dressed. He didn't know what he was going to do... his mind was racing. Why had he been let out of his imprisonment in the lab? Why was he in here? Where was Hojo? And was Lucrecia okay...? The last was the most important of all.

He looked up again as he bent to pick up the red, his father's cape. The man's eyes fell on the coffin on the raised platform. He slowly strapped on the cloak, realizing just then that Quicksilver was also on the ground, beneath all the fabric. He knelt, and picked up this, too... it had a little paper stuffed into the barrel, and curiously, Vincent pulled it out and read: 'I'm being merciful, Valentine, by giving you this. If the confinement becomes too much, you can always just shoot yourself in the head, or somewhere else, if you're too afraid of that. Either way, one silver bullet, and Galian will take care of the rest.'

He frowned. Confinement? The Turk stepped forward to the door, reaching for it with his claw. He turned the handle, it jiggled, stuck. It was locked... and the keys were not in here. Vincent hissed, and crumpled up the paper, throwing it across the room.

He tilted his head up to the ceiling, and just screamed. His human voice soon mingled with the bellow of Galian, the grunt of Gigas, and the roar of Hellmasker... so twisted was this demonic chorus, that even Vincent had to stop, falling down to his knees from the shock and the effort. He was still so tired, and, he couldn't believe it himself, but even the coffin was looking inviting.

Slowly, the Turk approached it, climbing over the edge, and practically falling into place with in it. Even inside the padded burial box, he felt an odd cushioning around his head, when he was sure one wasn't supposed to be there... he hadn't noticed it before, and reached up, and felt something velvet-soft... looking up, he saw the fuzzy edge of something red. Immediately, he found recognition. It was Lucrecia's red ribbon... she'd given it to him, as a last gift.

And what had he given her? Nothing. Not even the safety he'd promised... he deserved to die, to be a corpse here inside this coffin. And that's what he then swore to do. Reaching up with the long claw-arm, he pulled down the coffin lid, not even slightly phased by the echoing boom as it fell down. The darkness was welcoming, and he closed his eyes, turning over to his side... he could get used to this... and sleep was the only desire he still had, and the only thing he had left to do.

As he let go of the physical, and focused on what was in his mind, his new demons moved in on him... frowning above clenched teeth, Vincent choked one word before descending into sleep:

"Lucrecia."


	17. Epilogue

**Author's Beginning Note Thingy:** I'd originally intended to end with the previous chapter, but I felt this story needed... a little more closure than that. Hehe, besides, I had some people saying this story was too short! Can you imagine? XD My writing's always so long-winded... people (teachers) always tell me to cut it down. Oh well, here's the last chapter, promise... I've been underestimating this story's length since I first estimated that the last chapter would be #12. For your reading enjoyment.

xxx

Never before had a so recently pregnant woman run so fast through such rough terrain. Lucrecia, fumbling the syringe filled with the CHAOS virus, and the Death Penalty weapon. She stumbled and slipped on the rocky paths. Thank god it was July, and the days still ended late...

Her mind was perfectly focused, thinking of nothing but to leave behind the dreaded ShinRa mansion for ever. By some fluke of luck, she found her way back to the secluded valley and lake that she and Vincent had visited together almost a year ago.

She practically fell down the wet, grassy slope. She stopped, fortunately, before the water's edge... if she'd fallen in, there would've been not only no strength, but no will to try and rescue herself.

She climbed to her feet from grass-stained knees, and torn clothes. Running around the shore of the clear, deep lake, she took a running jump, and came bursting through the sheet of water that concealed the cave entrance, and hit the ground hard, twisting an ankle.

There she lay, savoring the touch of cold rock against her sweaty skin. Being kept in that low dungeon for all the summer had been torture, and all the worse for Vincent, she was sure.

Vincent... she'd left him behind. He and Sephiroth together... the only two things she still cared about in this god-forsaken world, and they were both left in the hands, and at the mercy of Hojo. She shuddered at the thought of his name. Never before had the girl even conceived of such a perfect personification of pure evil. She had once saw him for a genius, a man who would bring great new things to the world... and that was why she endured him, and why she ultimately chose the scientist over the Turk.

Now, she looked down at her withered, bony hand... the Jenova cell treatments had done a number on her. She never felt so weak and strong all at once. She saw, in particular, the little diamond ring that Hojo had given her.

Grimacing, she let go the things she was carrying, letting the gun clatter off her chest to the floor, and the little capsule of serum roll away, as she used her now free hand to tear the jewel off her finger. Once this was done, she tossed it carelessly behind her, hearing it clink on the floor, before skidding, and finally passing through the waters into oblivion.

Wearily, she stood, taking the gun and syringe with her. Limping, she made it over to the crystalline altar, walking around the first row of shining mako, and collapsing there, leaning back on the last. It reacted with her touch even more vibrantly as it had before... she felt as if the huge jewel were draining the last bit of energy out of her... and she was obliged to let it.

She didn't want to think about what she had to do next to live. She didn't want to live... she had nothing left to live for. Vincent and Sephiroth... were gone. The girl consented to close her eyes, still tightly gripping the two artifacts from ShinRa mansion, as she drifted off into sleep.

Years and years later, Vincent awoke to a strange rapping on his coffin. If it were not for the fact that he opened his eyes to see blackness, and hear voices outside, he would've thought he'd actually died... and gone to hell. The nightmares that plagued him throughout the endless sleep, no doubt caused by the restless demons, had thoroughly convinced him of this. Instead he woke, to the scratched up inside of his tomb.

Lucrecia likewise woke similarly... she opened her eyes after... who knew how long. She couldn't tell. She didn't know what it was like to be so detached for so long. But the crystal had grown around her in the process of her sleep. For a moment, this terrified her. The inside was filled with a lukewarm liquid, and she held her breath for fear that she'd drown... but it was no use, there was no way out. Her lungs was burning, she had to inhale...

...she did... but the liquid came easily into her, like a substitute for air... it was the purest, most cleansing thing she'd ever felt... but it made something pulse within her... something that felt like a sickness rising... Jenova.

Vincent had seen her again. Against all odds, the two were reunited. It hadn't been the happiest of meetings... but it had put to rest a long-nagging worry of his. He'd lingered behind after the rest of his party had left, to talk with her a little more in-depth... he told Cid and Cloud to wait outside for him.

"Lucrecia..." he muttered, walking forward, despite her warnings to stay away.

"Vincent, please don't come near me... the lifestream is strong here, and it dislikes Jenova's presence... that's why I'm inside..." she looked down.

He nodded in understanding, and there was a silence.

"What will happen to you?" he finally asked. "What will it do to you, since you have Jenova... what about Reunion?"

"Yes, reunion... I have heard about it... thank god my baby, my Sephiroth could escape it... I'm not so lucky, I didn't die..."

He looked down... the guilt from telling her of Sephiroth's death sinking in doubly now.

"But the call is getting stronger..." she continued, "Jenova wants me very much... the mother of her son... and still, I can't come. I'm trapped here..."

He nodded.

"If the pull becomes too great, I imagine..." she gave a weak little smile, like he'd seen the last time he saw her, "...the lifestream will eat me away all together."

He looked up sharply.

"I'm already just a shell of what I was." she explained, "I can feel it... there's not much of me left. Jenova keeps me alive, the planet wants me dead."

He looked down, "Lucrecia, I'm... I couldn't..."

"Don't even start, Vincent... don't bring up the past." she shushed him, and he obeyed, immediately closing his lips. "You have to go now." she said. This made him look up again.

"Why?"

"Because your friends are waiting for you." the smile was still there.

"But you're here..."

"You've waited for me too long already, Vincent... and it wasn't even worth it... after what I did..."

"I thought you said not to bring up the past."

The smile widened, "Right... so you'd better get out of here, or else I might just keep talking..."

"We couldn't have that."

They always had the strangest spark of humor in them... even now, after all he'd been through, and even with her nightly tortures of Jenova's call. They had it, too, back in the ShinRa basement... and seeing that second smile of hers, Vincent, reliable as always, gave in.

"But when this is all over... Lucrecia, I will come back for you."

"All right. I think I can manage that. I'll wait for you, right here, if I can."

"I won't say goodbye..." Vincent began, having already turned to walk away. He paused at the threshold of the waterfall, seeing the distorted figures of his two blonde companions waiting around outside, glad that the rushing sound of water on rock blotted out anything he said. "I'll say... see you next time." he took one last glance at Lucrecia over his shoulder, "Which is good, because last time, we didn't even get that."

He did come back for her, as he'd given his word to do. He went alone, the next time the group was near Nibelheim... leaving in the night, his path lit by the full moon, and the blazing fire of Meteor. He climbed into the mountains, following the path to the lake. The gunman edged around the shore, his long hair flying in the nighttime wind. He slipped inside, eyes turned immediately to the pillar of materia in the far end. Lucrecia was there, standing... no, floating in the liquid within the crystal, her body limp, pale and lifeless... so she was dead then.

"No..." he choked. The man took off, running up to her, and leaping over the first few rows of crystal, touching down in front of her. He put his hands on the smooth glassy surface. It glowed slightly, illuminating her angelic form within.

He looked up helplessly... he was too late. Too late in returning for her... too late in killing Sephiroth, probably her last chance at life. Now there was nothing. Not even the planet had saved her... she was innocent! It was not her fault she was infected by Jenova.

He slid down to his knees, resting his head forward on the rock. Something strange off to one side glinting in the mako-given light. Weakly, he sat up, and leaned over, reaching out... he pulled from the shadowy corner, a familiar dusty gun, and a familiar dusty little needle.

He smirked, "CHAOS... I wonder if I'm ready yet." without a second thought, he stabbed it right through the fabric of his pants, and into his leg. Wincing, he injected the liquid into himself. A searing heat flared up... nothing out of the ordinary. He staggered back, away from Lucrecia... he wouldn't let this new demon desecrate her grave. He felt it fighting for control... it wanted to come forward... but no... not here. He wouldn't let it defile this purified place, this _sacred_ place.

This thought in mind, thinking of Lucrecia always made the demons calm down, for the first time, he was able to hold back the power of the new presence within him. Then again, before, he'd been drugged, and feeble... no doubt it would be harder to restrain them.

The man smirked bitterly, as he sat back down, taking out his current gun, Outsider. He began to replace materia from it, into the Death Penalty, and as he did so, muttered beneath his breath, "I won."

Hojo's death was a sweet, sweet revenge... one Vincent had long been looking for. The very thought of it made his demon residents thirst for blood... and in the fight, he'd been crazed, even his own party members, he noticed, stepped back, and didn't dare interfere with one of his attacks.

He saw the scientist grow weak during the battle, staring fearfully, however, still defiantly up at him as he lowered the gun to his head for the final blow. But no... this wasn't revenge... at least, not the purest form of revenge. To taste it best, he would...

Vincent let himself go. He succumbed to the final transformation, which he'd never felt before. This, surprisingly, was the very least painful... his body hadn't been altered at all, for the most part. His skin bubbled black, claws extended out of his hands and feet. Fangs elongated in his mouth, and his eyes shifted to mere catlike slits.

The final stage, wings sprouted from his back, with a scream he felt himself fly into the air, the creature that was CHAOS now in complete control. Vincent's last thought as he disappeared into the darkness: "To be killed by his own creation."

When he awoke later, lying prone on the ground, he saw the mangled body of Hojo lying not far from him. CHAOS had done a thorough job, and he was even grateful he hadn't been there to see it. But one way or another, the deed was done.

After their little quest to save the world was fulfilled, Vincent returned to Nibelheim to mourn. He visited Lucrecia often, and as always, resided in the now even more dilapidated ShinRa mansion.

One day, he even ventured into his old room, on a whim that maybe his old flute was still there... his eyes fell on a curious relic, sitting on the nightstand in between the two beds. After all this time, the rose was still there, but nothing more was left of it than a shriveled, dried up shell. He approached it, reaching out with his left hand, and stroking a single petal oh-so-gently with the very tip of his claw. It crumbled away with his touch.


End file.
